My husband loves to take "shortcuts". You know, the kind that you think you are lost but of course, you are not because he knows "exactly" where you are! We had three days without kids. The youngest was visiting Grandma and Grandpa. The oldest we had just dropped off at camp in a place that is difficult to find with directions. We were on the adventure of a lifetime - that was his line. "We" decided to just drive around and find a place to spend a few days alone. Did I mention that we were in the middle of nowhere? I think we drove through part of a state land area of Michigan, which was full of trees, trees and more trees. While driving through our shortcut to nowhere, we saw a tiny log cabin sitting near a home with a sign on it stating that you could rent by the day. We stopped, rented it for our two nights and were excited to have some peace and quiet. During the one room tour and exchange of money and key, the man told us he had a canoe. He would drive us upriver, drop us for a peaceful canoe trip back to the cabin if we wanted. The next day, we decided to try our rowing skills and take the trip.
Waving goodbye to the stranger who dropped us off with his canoe, we began our adventure. It was quite a beautiful trip when we were not stuck in bushes or sitting on sand where the river ran too low. Toward the end of the ride, we began to head toward another group of bushes. The tree branch was going to hit my face, so I grabbed it. As I held the branch, the canoe continued to move. I am not sure if you can picture this or not, but my husband was behind me - behind the branch that I was holding as it bent further and further. He yelled for me to not let go, but by the time I saw his terrified face, the branch was bent so far I could not hold on any longer. Yes, I let go. What happened next actually happened in slow motion. The branch flung toward my husband's wide eyes. His arms and body went backward as if in a Matrix movie. Then, his feet followed his arms and body. He did quite an amazing back flip over the side of the canoe and into the river. His head popped out of the water to find his "should be concerned wife" laughing uncontrollably. I was bent over, holding my stomach that hurt from laughing so hard, with tears streaming down my face! What a hilarious event! It was priceless. I guess he did not find it as funny as I had. He dragged his soaking body back over the canoe and sat looking at me with one sandle on. The other had been sucked under the muck at the bottom of the river. Well, of course that caused me to break into another mindless moment of giggles.
I Will never forget that two day trip to nowhere. We had just wanted to get away from life for a few days. Isn't it amazing that God can bring joy and laughter in small silly things? If we had been too busy to take this mini vacation, I would not have this fun memory of our marriage. Of course, my husband may wish he had not taken the 'shortcut' that day!
Take time to be silly and laugh with your family or a friend. Take a shortcut in your life to give yourself a little time to relax. Take a few moments to find "you" again. Sometimes we get lost on the road to success and living life - we need to take time to just be. Time to laugh. Time to break loose and have a little fun. Ask God to show you a shortcut that you can take this week that will bring joy and laughter to your life.
No comments:
Post a Comment