We are winding down at the end of our 2nd full day at Rosemary Beach. In a few minutes, we are going to head back out to the boardwalk so that Sandra can photograph the sunset. We're celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary (which is actually the 22nd of month). We'd originally planned something more grand and suited to the event (a trip to Italy), but the constraints of finances and pregnancy wrought something more subdued. Subdued, but valued and welcomed.
We haven't done much aside from swimming, eating, reading, and talking. It couldn't get much better though.
Yesterday, we stopped by the Sugar Shak; Rosemary's ice cream and confectionary shop. I found this fantastic product: Marie Antoinette Head Pops. So you would believe me, I took this picture. I'm not sure what this says about our culture. What's next, Tyndale Kabobs? I'm a little sick that I can even turn that into a joke.
Last night, we watched The Fountain. It's a deep, probing romantic drama with all the mind-numbing twistedness of 2001: A Space Odyssey. It really moved me, and made Sandra a little soggy-eyed. I mentioned it because it echoed a theme that had reverberated through out the day yesterday: We are promised nothing; but we are given the present.
Somewhere C.S. Lewis, in multiple books but in particular The Screwtape Letters, says that the present is the most like eternity. The past and the future are not much like eternity at all. We are given the present and we should live in it. It probably sound like Zen to modern ears, but it is an essentially Christian idea.
Matthew 6:
25 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
28 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
We spent the past weekend at our pastor's family's farm in Alabama. We had the privilege to tag along on a youth student leader retreat. Our seniors are leaving, most of whom we've known since they were 12 or 13, and we wanted to tag along for sentimental reasons. They are truly a great bunch of young adults, and we wish them lots of adventures in the next few years.