OUR FAMILY VACATION by Janice Tomczak (little red riding hood ebook txt) 📕

For months ahead of time, for many of us, the anticipation of our family vacation seems to cause time to drag on. We keep ourselves busy with work and all of those other daily tasks that eat up our lives, but then peaking at the calendar we count off the months. We tuck it away in the back of our minds and then we have a bad day or a good day - an awful thing happens or a wonderful thing - and then we peak again to see we are only a few weeks closer. Months of anticipation and then one day it is close enough to begin our PLANS. Whether it is what our menu will be or who sleeps on what floor or what new rainy day game plans we might have. The time has finally come to know we will all be together again very soon.
Family vacation for many of us is that the bottom line is that we will all be together again in one place. We will wake up together, bump into each other coming up and down the stairs, trip over each other's kids and grand-kid's toys, have intimate and not so intimate conversations out on the deck together, make another ice cream or jack daniels run together, act like kids again together, be grown-ups together (when it's necessary), and laugh and cry together. Which brings me to the monsters.
Each one of us has our own monsters in our lives, whether they are small or huge, visible or invisible, they lurk around the corners of our lives. One night as I sat outside by myself, I thought that this was the one place where the monsters were not in control and were not allowed access. They may have tried to sneak along with us in our baggage, but what our monsters don't realize is that there is power in numbers. There is power in the love of our family. There is a strength that we have for each other and with each other that we may not feel when we are alone or seperated by distance.
We are not all the biblical David, although I wish we were. With God's power David was able to slay the most fierce of monsters. And although they may not be visible to others, our own monsters are just as real. They might be physical, emotional, financial, or things we cannot even put a name on- but they lurk, wanting for nothing more then to make us feel powerless against them.
Family. Family is all about fighting these monsters together. As in any battle, strategy is utmost in defeating the enemy. Sending out one person to fight the battle alone is useless. But sending an army out together with the same goal and the same heart is what it takes to win our battles. I believe that is what we have together. We have an amazing and diverse family. Our love has brought us through so much together. It has strengthened this army called Family. Where else can we go and be ourselves, both the good and the bad, and be accepted just as we are? Where else can we laugh like three year olds and then cry when our heart is breaking and know that we are loved just as we are? No judgement. Just love.
The monster? He looks so much bigger when we are all alone and yet he doesn't realize that he is outnumbered. He will be defeated.
The battle? It may be long and difficult and often is. Will it be the last? It will not. It was only months after this vaction that both my Mom and young daughter-in-law both lost battles with cancer. The only way we made it was with the love and support of each other.
Life has shown each one of us that there is always a bend in the road and we just don't know what awaits us around that bend. But we do know one thing for certain. We know who is waiting for us, and with us, around that bend.

Publication Date: 01-15-2010

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