September 26, 2018
Oceans of Praise
It was a long, tired, stressful day. It was the kind of day when as I’m driving home, the “Mandisa Fun” Pandora station (Christian Rock with catchy tunes and uplifting lyrics) was blaring out the speakers, windows down, and I’m trying to drum the day out of my head.
It was also nearing the full moon. There were very few clouds, a refreshing warm-cool wind (I knew this would be “blustery” at the beach), and it was 86 degrees at almost 7:30pm.
I decided we’d go to the beach.
I got home to find Eddie and Louis watching football – only into the first quarter. They do so little father-and-son stuff because Louis is always busy that I announced, “I’m headed to the beach,” knowing that would be cool for them to have father-and-son time.
“You’re taking the kids to go shark fishing?” Louis laughed. “It’ll be dark by the time you get there.”
“No, we’re going to walk along the shore and play in the shallows,” I smiled, “don’t worry, they’ll all be back in one piece. There’s a beautiful moon out and it looks amazing.”
Lucas almost stayed to watch football, but then realized all of the girls, including Anastasia, were going with Mommy, and this meant Mommy would be gone a long time.
We showed up to see this:
And this:
And that:
God had an amazing light show for us! It was so bright they could see to build a tribal village with walls, huts, and fields.
Rebeccah took most of the pictures and her selfie:
She tried to get pictures of us, but really we look like black blobs amid the darkness.
This one was a little better:
We raced up and down the shoreline. The water and wind was warm, so Anastasia lay down in the surf to get covered in water. Jillian, Jaquline, Kimberly, and Lucas followed her. Each was completely soaked in the first fifteen minutes. I think it took Rebeccah a half-hour before she let her hair get wet. Our long walk ended up being over two and a half miles! (1.3 miles one way, 1.3 miles back.) We sang praise songs because the majesty of the night looked like it was praising God.
We had to leave when Becca texted saying she was almost done with work. Anastasia was giddy at the prospect of “beating Mommy home” so we trouped back to the van, cleaned up at Aunt Becca’s, and spent a few minutes after Becca got home chatting before my crew made our way home. (Sister time for us Mommies!)
Thank you, Jesus, for a wonderful, exhilarating night.
And yes, my devious plan worked… all of them got back on their good sleep schedule.
Thanks for reading!
Type at you next time…
~Nancy Tart