A Chief's Wife's Heart's 'aFire: Time For A Photographic Visit To Florida's Gulf Coast

Saturday, May 3, 2014

Time For A Photographic Visit To Florida's Gulf Coast

          We're back from a visit on the Florida Panhandle country with our much-loved, long-distanced, fast-paced, always-on-the-go other members of our family. *Whew!* But you can obviously see how they fit in with us & we fit in with them since we have so much in common besides just our great LOVE for one another. We've known this family since 1997, & once others hear the entire story; they tend to agree that GOD works in very strange -but still very miraculous ways! we sort of 'adopted' them in those early years of our friendship, but while we were helping them grow, they 'adopted' US somewhere along the way....and we've done a great deal of our own growing, too! When they first headed back to their "home" state of Florida from Indiana 10 years ago, the ChiefHubby and I both bawled our eyes out - daily. I was afraid I'd never see them again, and on top of that; I was angry. Not at them, though. no, I was angry at TIME itself. In my eyes (at the time, anyway...no pun intended but a little laughter probably got out anyway, huh??) time was an enemy. Throughout my life to that point, I'd fought a long, bitter, hateful war with 'time'. Time was something that 'stole' from us. It tested us. Time never gave an inch -or a second of itself freely to spare, never let itself be borrowed. Never gave anyone a break. And, it always made us CHANGE. You guessed it: 'change' was Enemy#2 on my list. But then....that was about the same year (2004) when I got sick. And that was the worst TIME of my life. And, of course, time didn't stop while I just 'got well'. No, it wasn't as easy as that. I didn't get well for....quite some time. Actually.....a lot of time. It's been 10 years & my days are still controlled by how my body 'can' or can't on that particular day. For a deaf woman who daily got up & donned that SuperWife/Mom cape and just got it all done (sick most of the time w URI & angina from heart murmer since I was 11)...it was a cruel blow. But, as GOD always does, He knew that's what I needed in order to learn how to deal with things like TIME and CHANGE. They can be pretty cool, once you get the hang of them! And you learn from them, first-hand, allllllll those things the ones who love you were trying to help you see in the things they exampled to you. It's perfectly OK not to be perfect cause JESUS already knew you weren't! (He still wants you to keep striving for it, though.) It's OK that the world won't stop if you have to rest. Everyone needs a break. We just take them at different times, which makes it look like everyone else is not doing as much as you. (Or visa-versa!) And more than anything else; TIME and CHANGE are both GIFTS!!! GOD Himself invented both, and had every single one of us in mind when He did so.
      With all that said, you can see where my mind was as I looked around during this latest trip. Not just taking a look at our family (& I was greatly BLESSED to have our older FFCaptSon & his lovely young lady with us for the first trip one of our sons has been able to go on in 5 yrs (when the younger PURDUE Son was last able to go along on a trip). I look forward to the time when all four will be able to join us and we could rent a house for the week to allow us to invite all the Florida/Bama Family down to stay with US hosting them...a house full of loud laughter, Trilogy movies (Myeh. *shrug*), late night giggles&fits doing 'Just Dance 2' & softball & (StateChampions!) Basketball games for the girls to go & watch them play and cheer them on, TEA PAR-TAYS!, beautiful sunshine, boogiewaves, and sand EVERYWHERE (Oh.Joy.) and how we all always seem to pick up right where we left off last, as if we just saw each other the day before instead of months ago. And THE strangest part of all: we are all on the go-GO-GO! from the second we get there, but we always come home feeling REFRESHED. I think it's the LOVE we all share that does it. And that's GOD!! And He watches over our DRIVER no matter which one of us the ChiefHubby NEVER allows to do the driving. Hmmm...I'm feeling another "Johnny&Roy" captioned photo coming on... ;)
PS: If you've never been to the Florida Panhandle....you will need a CAR for the most driving you will ever do in any state. You'll need to double that if you have more than one couple on your trip.
So. With any further ado.....here's the pics. I DID have the time of my life doing these! :-) Enjoy!