Back to the Real World

Ah, the beach was lovely.
We arrived Thursday night, giving us all day Friday and Saturday and leaving on Sunday.
Friday, my friend Gwendy and I went and played golf. It was so much fun.
It was windy and once my ball was going straight and suddently turned to the right and splashed right into the water. It was funny.
The beach was a bit nippy on Friday.
I wound up sitting in a long sleeve shirt bundled with my towel!
But the hot tub was nice. (Until you got out of course, then you froze!)

Friday night we went to LuLu's. You know, LuLu's is just one of those hype places. I mean the food was decent, but the atmopshere is fun. I guess it's just one of those places you have to go when you go the Gulf Shores.
Friday night it stormed and we where on the 10th floor.
The wind was crazy and loud.

Saturday on the beach was GLORIOUS!
It was warm and just a bit breezy.
We went on the beach around 10:30, came up for lunch later, and then stayed out until 6:00.
The water was COLD at first, but after you got used to it, it was fun...excpet when the waves smacked me so hard I came partially out of my bathing suit and smashed my knee into the ocean floor...but you know, besides me being me, the ocean itself was nice!

I love just sitting on the beach, listening to my MP3 and contemplating the vastness of the ocean, my sin, and God's love. How you can sit in front of an endless body of water and not understand that a Holy God created that, is beyond me.
I feel blessed this past week to have been able to enjoy the beauty and majesty of the Mountains and then enjoy the serenity and endlessness of the ocean.
I love how the ocean can look so calm while you just sit and look at it, but then once you enter you realized the depths and the danger and the effort it takes just to stay afoot. Watching allows you to enjoy the beauty, but entering makes you respect the power. You have to experience both to understand the fullness.
The Hymn, "O The Deep Deep Love of Jesus", went over and over in my head this weekend.

"O the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast unmeasured, boundless free!
Rolling as a mighty ocean, in it's fullness over me.
Underneath me, all around me, is the current of Thy love.
Leading onward, leading homeward, to my glorious rest above.

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, Spread His praise from shore to shore!
How He loveth, ever loveth, Changeth never never more.
How He watches o'er His loved ones, Dies to call them all His own.
How for them He intercedeth, watcheth o'er them from the throne!

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, Love of everey love the best!
Tis an ocean vast of blessing, Tis a haven sweet of rest.
O the deep, deep love of Jesus, Tis a heaven of heavns to me.
And it lifts me up the glory, for it lifts me up to the thee."

So now it is back to the real world. I feel refreshed and ready. I think! I sure do love the beach though...