The "Best Days"

If we all were to look back on our life, what would we consider to be the "best days"? Would it be the times when everything seemed to be perfect? The times when the sun shined the brightest and the soft warm breezes wrapped around our body like a gentle massage? When our friends and family contributed and enhanced our sense of fulfilment and love? When the world wasn't fighting against our plan for happiness, but rather, seemed to dance along with us and, at times, even let us lead? Are these the best times in life? If so, then I got to see a few of the best times of my life last week while at the beach with my family. But as I recall all the events that took place last week, I realize that we all had more than a week's worth of struggles as well. But I'm beginning to realize that it's these struggles that actually make up the "best days" of our lives.

To me, there is not a much better feeling than sitting on an ocean beach with my mind fully aware that tomorrow's plans are just going to be a carbon copy of today's. Relaxation has been a goal of mine since as far back as I remember. And the best remedy I've found for my stresses, fatigue, and anxieties is a series of lazy days laying on a warm sunny beach. Waves continuously crashing, children continuously playing, and the sun and breezes continuously affecting my senses is as close to heaven as I've felt (at least physically). But as I look back on all my beach trips, all the times of laying on the beach seem to be lumped together in one package. No one day seems to be better than any other. In fact, all the "good times" from these vacations apparently go in a big box in my memory entitle "BEACH". So some of the "best days" of my life have been at the beach, but I don't seem to recall the specifics, just the whole package...the whole box entitled "BEACH".

But what I do recall specifically is the bad times: The arguments, the jelly fish bites, the neck pains, the sicknesses, the sun burns and rashes, the deaths in the family, the tornadoes, the toe nails ripping off.....So in reflection, I wonder why these tough times, these struggles, come to us in the midst of our "good times". Is it God's hand or is it the Devil's handiwork?...or both? My Father-in-law has always jokingly referred to our family vacations as "the vacation from hell #(?)"...I think this year was #12 or something. But even with this title, he along with all of us, keeps coming back for more. Year after year we all eagerly await the next "vacation from hell". So after all this time I'm beginning to realize that these one week vacations are mini-capitulated examples of our whole life. In one week, the good times are multiplied substantially, but as a result, the bad times seem to be as well. But it's the bad times we remember best, because it's the bad times that effect us the most.

Now as I'm three days removed from "the vacation from hell #12", let me be the first in the family to say "bring on #13"! Because with 12 vacations behind us, this family has something that most families do not. Just like people who have been to war together will attest to, it's the struggles in life that bring about growth. And when people struggle together, they grow together. And when our life's journey starts drawing to an end, it will be in these times of shared growth that we will realize that God has given us the "best days" of our lives.