Left Behind

As you are reading this, we've just returned from a long weekend at the beach. With our kids growing up and all having jobs, it's tough to make the longer, typical family vacation happen. When the kids were younger and all of them homeschooled, our trips were often longer and took place in the less busy part of the year, (a.k.a. not in the summer.)

But this year the only time that seemed to work was on a holiday weekend and boy was the beach crowded! 

We had a lot of fun playing in the water and on the beach, eating and playing games and just hanging out together. I've never been one to enjoy sitting in the sun but with this being a shorter vacation and the kids being older, I did just that.

When they were younger I would spend my time with a shovel, digging in the sand and making giant sculptures or holes or moats or whatever the kids wanted. That kept me busy instead of just laying there and getting cooked. And since I don't enjoy being cooked, playing with the kids in the water and digging in the sand really made it fun. But the kids aren't into digging in the sand anymore and so we mostly swam and layed in the sun, except I took an umbrella and mostly layed in the shade.

We did take some time to bump a volleyball around and that was fun. As a family that's something that all of us really enjoy. 

One thing that I usually do on almost every beach trip is take a canoe along. Almost every area along the coast has great canoeing within a couple minutes drive. I can get up early and paddle, enjoy coffee on the water during the best part of the day, and be back for breakfast when the rest of the family gets up. It keeps the days full and time flying by.

But this time I left the canoe behind. I thought about it, looked at my canoe, looked at my paddle, and decided against it. It would be a quick trip. I probably wouldn't use it and it would just sit on top of the car.

I looked at my paddle that I had made some thirty years ago. I had scribbled on it a line from one of Dwight Yoakam's songs, “A thousand miles from nowhere, time don't matter to me.” Me and that paddle, we’ve been lots of places together.

“Sorry paddle, not this time.”

I decided to take a book along, just in case. When I was in my teens, I loved reading. But nowadays I hardly ever read a book unless it's a how-to book or a short story like in a magazine. But I've had this book lying by my bed for about a year now, and just haven't taken the time to read it through. It's the second part of the story of the Hostetler massacre called The Return and is a sequel to Northkill by Bob Hostetler and J.M. Hochstetler. It's fiction based on the true story of how Jacob and his two sons, Christian and Joseph eventually return to the white settlement. It is historically accurate. The first book was the story about the massacre. I love early American history, especially around the French and Indian war era, and since this story is about my distant ancestors I find it really interesting. The second book was about the father's escape and the two boys' adoptions into different Indian tribes.

I dove into the book every chance that I got and before long I found myself a thousand miles from nowhere, somewhere in the mountains of Northwestern Pennsylvania, living in an Indian settlement and roaming around the countryside, hunting deer and bear and being adopted into an Indian tribe. It was interesting how quickly the youngest boy, Christian, assimilated into the tribe and found joy there.

I can say that I truly enjoyed my vacation. Not just the fun times with the family. But the quieter down times, reading and laying around as well. Even without the paddle.

Underlying all of that is the idea that staying busy with the things you enjoy, whether that's actually doing them or reading about and studying them, and then finding ways to share them with others is what really makes life enjoyable and makes time fly by.

Life is short and I'm not an advocate of making time fly by. At the same time I realize that life is short and a gift that God gives us. It can be boring if we don't find purpose in it or find ways to share it with others.

What we do with what we have is up to us. Recognizing where that gift comes from and passing it on to others, that might just bring the most joy yet!