Growing up in Southern California brought us close to the beach towns where summers were full of bare feet, sun screens, sunburns, tan bodies not to mention the blisters on shoulders and noses. Believe it or not, all of us kids could ride the waves in Redondo, Hermosa and Manhattan Beach. Summers were never boring! My friend Iona Kay had a huge inner tube that we would carry in her mothers blue car. We would sit inside the tube with our feet dangling in the center, letting the water move us around and having the best time. I didn't even know how to swim!
When my children were small I would take them to the beach and sit on a blanket and watch them shovel the sand into their buckets, gather shells and run out into the water as the waves would slap against the shore. When they became more adventurous I would take them to a small saltwater pool. The Hyperium Plant used the ocean water to cool the turbines and then would pump it back out into this small pool of warm ocean water, with a life guard tower. It cost .25 cents for each of us to go through the turnstyle and they could play safely for hours.
In Oregon we didn't live near the ocean so on weekends we would pile into the car and drive for 3 hours or so until we came to Harris Beach where we would picnic, walk the shore line and the kids would run, climb the rocks but never played in the water. The Oregon coast is beautiful but the water is oh so cold. Nothing compares with a day at the beach! Nothing seems even close to the romance of hearing the seagulls overhead, the smells of a mixture of seaweed, wet sand and ocean life permeating the air.
Jim and I always thought we would retire on the coast and let the kids come visit us at the beach. We thought there would be no better place than to watch the sunset, shining it's reflection across the surface of the water. We thought the roaring of the wind and the sound of the waves crashing could loll us to sleep night after night.
I love the book of James! It is full of down home sort of phrases. "Come now, you who say, today or tomorrow, we shall go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit." James 4:13 We make plans even to the point we plan financially for when we are ready. We draw up blue prints of our dream house. We buy a new washer and dryer just before we put our plans into motion because it will be the last one we buy. The point being, that we will need another new set before you know it. Plans change!
"Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away." James 4:14 It's okay to plan! It's okay to prepare! It's okay to get new appliances, because it is something you need anyway. But don't put all your apples in one basket; or marbles in one game. "Instead, you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we shall live and also do this or that'." James 4:15a
The term I hear a lot today is; "I was going to do this or that, but life happened." Yes; life does happen and plans change. Someone dies; someone moves away; someone can't get around as well as they use too. Jim and I found ourselves wanting to be closer to our children all the time, instead of having a place for them to come and visit once a year, if that often.
God isn't concerned where we retire to! God isn't concerned if we are financilly well heeled! God isn't concerned if we drive an old clunker until the day we die! What God is concerned about is that we do not move away from Him. That we are still willing to serve Him and His people all the days of our lives. "But prove yourselves doers of the word and not merely hearers who delude themselves." James 1:22 Yes; Plans change; Life happens, but tomorrow brings a new day with surprises and no worries! By Jane Ann Crenshaw 8/24/09
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