Growing up, finances were often tight — so now that I’m older, I appreciate the financial sacrifice my parents made to take my brother and me to Hawaii for Christmas one year. Forty years later, my family still talks about that amazing trip. On walks along the beach I was sure I’d never seen water so blue or held a hand so strong as my dad’s.
It was as if real life held its breath for a precious week.
I’ll be retracing those memories next week when my own family travels to Hawaii for Christmas. Like my parents, we’ve leaned hard on frequent flyer miles and found change in the couch cushions to make this trip happen. But since we haven’t had a real family vacation in four years and both our kids graduated this year — and Hawaii is the one place we speak regularly that they have wanted to visit but haven’t been — we’re making it happen.
As I pack and prepare to leave in a few days, I’ve adapted an excerpt from my devotional, Find Joy for you this week. Revisiting it has helped me recapture sweet memories about my dad, who passed away exactly three years ago. It also has renewed in me a deep longing for the joy we will know one day when we see the glory of heaven. I hope it draws you into this powerful mystery, too.
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