Have you ever noticed the way most of us approach vacation? We push through everyday life dreaming of the next escape we get that we call vacation. It is our chance to escape life... to go to the mountains or beach to go on a cruise or tour Europe. We live looking to these little pockets of time as our reprieve from the drudgery of life.
Our family just returned from vacation. Yesterday in fact.... We still have unpacking to do. We still have laundry calling us and everyday life is starting to kick in once more. My husband is working while I am doing the everyday tasks once more of running the littles and puppies to their respective appointments. I found my way to my corner of Starbucks where I once more connected with the people I have come to know in this space that has begun to serve as my "unofficial office" over the past couple of years.
This time the experience of vacation and the return to "normal" life has been markedly different for our family. We all struggled to move this morning, but we still managed to get to our respective places in a timely and orderly fashion. In fact, there was a feeling of contentment as we all resumed the rhythm of life that we had put to the side for the past 10 days. Our newly turned 2 year old was super excited to resume her routine while our extroverted 3 1/2 year old was all ready to meet up with her friends and tell them all about her adventures on the beach.
The anticipation with which our entire family began to view our trip home as we neared the end of our vacation time this year has caused me to reflect. What had changed? Why was this vacation different?
As I thought about this I began to see that over the past few years my husband and I made the choice to pursue a more intentional lifestyle for our family. We began to prioritize date nights, we began to make sure we made adventure a part of our everyday life. We framed simple things like running errands as a family as adventures. We slowed down and took the time to explore the things we were actually familiar with looking for the new and unexpected. We slowed down to try to see the world around us through the eyes of our toddlers.
So often as adults we become cynical. We view the world through the jaded eyes of our "vast experience". We perceive our children as lacking our understanding of the world when maybe the more accurate viewpoint is we lost our wonder at the world.
Don't get me wrong, I am all too aware that we live in a world where evil abounds, but sometimes our jaded eye sees everything through the lens of evil intent. The eye of a toddler sees the world through the lens of wonder and adventure. The little things like shells on the beach, the power of an ocean wave and the quirky nature of birds take on a completely different meaning when experienced in the context of a toddlers world view.
Jesus reminded his disciples in Matthew 18:3: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."
What if the true gift of children to our world is their ability to see the world through this special lens? What if that lens is what Jesus was encouraging us to embrace? What if in stopping and allowing ourselves to learn from the children in our lives we are moving closer to the kingdom of heaven that Jesus promises?
I feel like this family vacation showed me something interesting about myself... When I stop and allow my daughters to show me the world through their unique lens as children I see more than just nature differently. I see that I cannot nor do I want to spend my life in vacation mode. Vacation serves as a break, a reset of sorts. It is greatly needed to sustain the normal rhythm that is life, but it is not intended to become the normal. Everyday life is full of needed boundaries that give us purpose and move us forward toward goals. Vacation becomes the opportunity to relax the boundaries to not hold so firmly to a schedule. It provides a longer pause that allows us to breathe a little more deeply and slowly as we are freed from the demands of life for a brief period. If we take vacations too often they lose their wonder as they become commonplace, but when they are inserted at just the right moment they create the perfect pause in the incredible symphony of our lives that God is creating.
I find myself wondering as I move out of this vacation and back into the rhythm that is life if just maybe those rhythms and rests combined with the world lens of a child is what allows us to experience the kingdom of heaven on earth? When I stopped to look at our return from vacation through the lens of my 2 year old I see that the everyday rhythm provides a much needed security. There is a peace and calm that comes from embracing the familiar. When I look at vacation through the lens of my 3 1/2 year old I see the throwing off of the everyday boundaries to embrace a period of wild, abandon adventures. When I step back and combine those two lenses, I feel just a little closer to God. I see His love in the peaceful familiar patterns we return to, but I also experienced His power and joy in the moments we were able to forsake the familiar and explore the unfamiliar with an abandon that isn't possible in the middle of the everyday rhythms of life.
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