What a wonderful vacation! I am so grateful we get to retreat like we do, regularly. We all need that for our health and well-being. I feel refreshed, but extremely tired after our travels. Our flight to Dallas last Wednesday got canceled because of the weather and our only chance of making it to Cozumel was driving to Dallas and catching our second leg. It was a terrible drive there because of the rains that caused our flight to get canceled in the first place. That drive turned out to be a blessing in disguise for sure. Our staff contacted us around 11:30 to get help recovering our business phones as they were knocked out in the storm. Monica, our front desk coordinator, did everything in her power to get everything working without making that contact to us, but sometimes you just need Doc. They got it taken care of before we left Dallas.
We flew out, on time, from Dallas and we left America behind. It was so much fun and the weather was perfect! Hubby and I are definitely spoiled in our travels the last few years. When we awaken we pick the phone up and order our coffee and by the time it arrives, they serve it on the balcony. It is awesome to read the Bible in that setting, there’s just something about it. Mornings were my favorite part! Hubby and I read a few devotionals together through our YouVersion Bible app daily and though we comment on the app each day, we rarely find the time to come back to it and discuss our thoughts. On vacation, in vacation mode, we get the opportunity to go deeper and it is such precious time. We laughingly refer to each other as Vacation Matt and Vacation Chandra for weeks prior to these get-aways, reminding one another what fun is to come. We would like to sleep in but tend to rise rather early even on vacation. Our internal clocks are so set and the sun is crying out for us to enjoy it, so we got the entire morning most days.
Throughout the days Hubby and I hung out at the pool or the ocean and read to one another. We have really gotten interested in the Enneagram and we took The Complete Enneagram by Beatrice Chestnut. We started our journey learning about our personalities shortly after getting married, but we have never found something like this or this in-depth. For anyone who has knowledge of the Enneagram, Hubby is a five, the investigator, and I am a seven, the enthusiast. This new book we read goes even deeper than those simple numbers (there are nine types) and explains the 27 different types when you include the subtypes and such. We have done so much growing in our communication and relationship overall from learning about ourselves and each other. We feel like you owe that to your spouse, to become the best version of yourself through self-knowledge and seeking Jesus. In our travels and some at home, we love deepening our bond this way. I get that doesn’t sound fun in the least to a lot of people but for us, it works and I am more deeply in love with him today bc of it, and in deep like with myself because of it.
There’s an old cliche’ that says, “you can’t take care of anyone else if you don’t take care of yourself first”. Getting away from the hustle and bustle of this life and all of it’s demands is how we take care of ourselves. Someone commented recently on Facebook about us traveling a lot, some of it is for work but a lot of it is for R & R. Because of all of the illness I have faced, taking a weekend to do nothing is necessary rather consistently. I do not care to land myself back to that place again, working too much without rest can kill you, literally. We did decide we will do more “at-home stay-cations”. What that means is that we turn off cell service, close the blinds, and have an entire weekend to ourselves. We could have an announcement in the next couple of years and may need to save for some weddings, you never know.
We always love coming home, but it could have been a day or two longer and we wouldn’t have complained. The drive home was tough simply because it was so late but we made it safe and sound. When we came into the house our daughter had the puppies in their kennels in the living room so they could see us when we came in. Behind their kennels was a vase of beautiful flowers, a card, and a big wrapped box. The card may have been one of the best I’ve ever received from them and on the back it read, “check in the refrigerator too”. I opened the fridge and in it were about a dozen chocolate and white chocolate covered strawberries, one of my favorites! I was so surprised by their thoughtfulness, Thank you sweet daughters of mine, you made me feel so loved.
Thank you to all of you out there who read my blog and share in our lives. I pray that God uses it to shine a light on what life and marriage can look like with effort. We believe God gives us marriage to make us holy, not happy. Happy is the choice you make to look at and build up one another’s strengths and hearts. We’ve chosen that because we want to enjoy our lives together and our covenant will not be broken. We are all broken, sin in this world assures that. If we take time to dig deeper, to look at those things in our life that caused our brokenness with Jesus, He will bring healing and life can be a fun and exciting thing. Staying stuck in the patterns will only bring about pain and more strife. I will share the things that Hubby and I do along the way to grow and learn so that possibly it will encourage you to do the same. I hope you are having an awesome week!
“Open your mouth and taste, open your eyes and see how good GOD is. Blessed are you who run to Him.” Psalms 34:8 MSG
As Beauty Unfolds... 