Hilton Head 2K14

So, this was our trip to Hilton Head this October.  After the wonderful trip I had with Grandma and Papa a couple years ago, taking the boys along, I told them I wanted to come back with Jeff sometime.  Last fall didn't work out, what with giving birth and what not, so this fall it was!  The boys had a GREAT time and they all 3 LOVED the ocean again.  With as much time as we spent in the river at Grandma and Papa's, in the creek behind our house growing up, at the neighborhood pool, or at the ocean on vacations growing up, it would be hard for one of my children to not inherit the water gene:)  

Thomas, Jacob...and James all RAN for the water as soon as we got to the beach.  I mean, James never looked back.  Seriously.  Older people stopped all week long to watch James run fearlessly into the water and get knocked over and under waves, and just not care at all.  The kid would have seriously drown without me or Jeff to hold his hand and hold him back from running as far and deep as his little legs would have allowed.  He would just squeal and grin and RUN.  The beach was actually SO easy compared to the pool with him.  Concrete is hard when you fall, but the sand isn't so bad, plus, as the pictures will prove, James felt like the sand even tasted great...you know, if you happened to land face first in it.  Our days at the beach were truly great.  I just brought lots of snacks for James to keep him from getting fussy too quickly, Grandma and Papa let the boys pick out some gnarly new sand toys, so there was that for entertainment if the water lost its luster.  Jacob and Jeff threw the football for hours and hours and hours in the water.  One day, Jacob found a friend out in the water, and then the 3 of them played football for hours and hours and hours:)  Thomas was in and out of the water...he definitely loved it, but as is his nature, he kind of meandered and would stick with one thing for a while and then mosey on over to where James was digging or splashing and play with him for a while.  Thomas reallllly liked building sandcastles.  

The other great thing about Hilton Head is the bike riding!  While it was busier this week than the one we went for in November a couple years back, it still wasn't bad, and so biking wasn't a super scary endeavor with all the boys.  We brought Thomas' bike, but he didn't end up riding it as much as I thought he would.  His little legs got tired of trying to keep up, so thankfully the Joslins had let us borrow their bike trailer for Thomas and James.  The two of them loved that thing!  It allowed me, Jeff and Jacob to go on longer bike rides and not worry about Thomas not being able to make it the whole way.  Jeff and I got to go on a bike date we'll call it, one afternoon.  We rode a realllllly long ways and stopped at a harbor place and explored some shops and stuff like that.  We also got to go out to eat one night by ourselves which was fun and delicious!  It was really so awesome to be there with Grandma and Papa...they got time to enjoy the boys and watch them get to do new things...and Jeff and I got a chance to get out by ourselves a few times too!  That wouldn't have happened if we had been somewhere by ourselves:)  Papa went on some bike rides with Jeff and the boys and they took the older boys to play pirate putt putt one day while Grandma and I stayed home and let James nap.  Grandma came with me to the beach one afternoon with the boys while Jeff and Papa did...something...probably napped!  There was always someone who could run/ride their bike over to the store, which is also a not often thought of convenience!!

We only had one accident while we were there, which was Jeff was helping Thomas with a shower in the bathroom grandma and papa and Jeff and I had been using, and he ran over to the other bathroom where I was helping the other two boys, to grab the baby wash.  While Jeff stepped out, Thomas picked up my razor, which I left sitting out since the kids weren't taking showers in this bathroom the rest of the week, and wanted to see if he pushed it on his thumb, would it leave little line marks?  Well, it didn't, because he evidently pushed it on his thumb and pulled down with the razor, taking off a nice hunk of skin.  It was a bloody mess (said with a British accent)!  But, after much wrapping, it was fine and healed really quickly actually!

 Ah yes, the pool was lovely, and lots of kid things to play with...just not ideal for James who insisted on running everywhere...straight into the pool even!

 Lazy Rivering

 We saw an alligator while riding bikes one day, and it was in the same little pond where we saw one two years ago!

 Dinner sin ninos

Jeff looking majestic on our bike ride

 Thomas built this epic sandcastle wall thing the last day of our trip, and this was a shot of him singing (while dancing) "CASTLE, CASTLE, CASTLE!!" (repeat)

 The boys did get to eat ice cream at the ice creamery FOUR times on this vacation!  Grandma and Papa took them once by themselves...but then we somehow always ended up back over there:)  Thomas even chose a tie dyed shirt from the ice cream shop as his souvenir!

Joy to the World?

photo credit: AP

How can it be? How can this season of Christmas, this season that most will see as a busy, fun-filled month long party, complete with gifts and new dresses and dinner and drinks; but this season that is most sacred to us as believers, how can this season continue to echo with death, and evil, and loss, and agony? Why would God allow these school killings, these bombings, these asinine US political wimps to reign supreme in our minds and on our tvs and in our newspapers? Why not another time of year? Why not let this season of celebration of Jesus' birth from eternity be it for us? Wouldn't it be easier for our hearts to be GLAD and set on our Savior who came to earth, Emmanuel, God with us, thousands of years ago in a little stable ? Wouldn't that help...and maybe help not just us as Christians, but maybe it would paint a pretty enough picture to even woo unbelievers?

photo credit: 

UGGH. I guess not. See, when I was reading a British news article about the recent school attack in Peshawar, Pakistan, and saw the faces of the Taliban men sitting, weapons in hand, prepared for their mission to slaughter babies, children...I just lost it. There is nothing beautiful about them. There is nothing heroic about them, and yet there are people out there who somehow think they are both of those things. They fund these things, they encourage these things. It is not just these smaller groups of suicide bombers and militants that are deceived, it is so much bigger than that. So much greater than that, so much so that I don't even know...couldn't even guess. But when I cry and mourn for these little people who were created in the image of God, and for their parents who will forever have these memories and an empty seat at their tables, my heart is reminded that we were not far off from this own evil ourselves.  

We were once enemies of God, children of wrath. Not apathetic towards God like I like to describe my pre-conversion self. But enemies. Full of wrath. Our hearts were deceitful and wicked above ALL things. Even our wisdom was foolishness to God. As an enemy of God, is there anything we couldn't have done? I mean really? Is there any sin too heinous? Good moralist that many of us are, it's nice and comforting to think, “of course there are sins that are too terrible, that even I, as an unrepentant, blinded-to-my-own-sin-self would never have dared to commit. Surely there was enough goodness in me somewhere to hold back from brutally killing children, from rape, from beheading someone. SURELY.” But guys, I cry now because there was not “enough” goodness in me. There was no goodness in me...I didn't inherit any from my parents from long ago, Adam and Eve. I had no chance. I was without hope. I followed the “prince of the power of the air”...that's Satan. There was enough evil in my heart to do any of those things and even more. I could have been any of those murderers. That could have been me.

But now, (thank you Jesus that it didn't end there!) we have been brought near by the blood of Christ (Eph. 2: 13) By the great love of God and His always abounding, never ending grace, I am not an enemy of God. For the purpose of God's own glory, He called me out of a life of darkness that I didn't even know I was living in, and gave me eyes to see and ears to hear and He called me his daughter. He changed my wicked, deceitful heart into a heart like Jesus'. Praise be to God that I am not deceived anymore!

So, how can this season of great joy continue to echo with death and evil? Because we are not just celebrating Jesus' entrance into this world to regenerate our ugly hearts, but we are anticipating Him returning (come, Lord Jesus SOON!) to finish and to conquer and to make right all of this that is so wrong right now. If I hadn't been so engulfed in all of this heart wrenching news lately, I don't know that I would be before the throne of God so often this month. I don't know that I would be petitioning God for my own family so much. I don't know that I would be crying out for the other part of Advent...the future part, the part not yet fully realized. I don't know that I would be reminded so often of what Jesus' birth meant for me, that I am no longer an enemy, but a fellow heir with Christ because I am now part of a single,eternal Family.

So please, Jesus, please. Return. But while we're waiting, please keep our hearts and our minds filled with your Spirit and your truth, and let every hard thing be a means to mobilize us as Your hands and feet here on earth to work for Your Kingdom, and to pray for the poor and broken and utterly crushed. And please, open blind eyes and unstop deaf ears, not just here, and not just “over there”, but all over Your creation. Amen.

*Most of my paraphrase here came from Romans 5 or Ephesians 2