It’s a Saturday night and you and the wife have the night off and you’re gonna catch up with each other. Out to eat? Naw. Shopping? Nope. And then your wife flings out the most exciting suggestion of what to do together;

“Let’s go to the beach!’

Your reply ‘Let’s pack our bags!’

Ten minutes later, this young couple Heath (26) and Carissa (24) Thompson were scootin out their front door, bright beach bags and snacks in hand, loaded up in the Chevy and headed southward to the beach! They left on this quick jaunt knowing that both of their jobs required them to be back and able bodied on Monday morning.

A couple of neat factoids here:

Carissa is 28 weeks pregnant with their first child and the beach is 8 hours away.
Leaving Jackson at 3 pm, they arrived at Destin, Florida at 11:30 pm. After finding no rooms available they decided they would bunk overnite in the back of their Tahoe.

Thusly, this young couple were on a long journey, the young woman was pregnant with child, there was no room in the inn anywhere. However this time, there was no manger, nor camels or sheep and their guiding star was a GPS. And the baby is expected to be a blessed girl child. Perhaps it’s no accident here that the father’s given name is:

Joseph.

Waking up early, unfolding themselves from the back of the vehicle and watching the sun rise over the ocean, they had a nice brunch that overlooked the turquoise waters of the Gulf.

After some fun in the sand, laughing and just enjoying themselves the young couple had a picnic lunch on the beach. They then pointed their white Tahoe back north at 1 pm and drove themselves back into their respective worlds of adultish responsibilities and were safely back in Jackson at 830.

A successful life requires us to plan, to be accountable and to be adult.

But sometimes, while we were busy making sure we’re at church every time the door opens and making sure the kids are enrolled in both piano lessons AND soccer we have forgotten that we can actually go unplanned into our tomorrows.

Typically, we’re not as important as we usually self elevate ourselves to be. We forget that the world can go on without us on a tight schedule. We can miss that pot luck. We can sit longer with friends and coffee.

We can leave our jobs, move to Murfreesboro Tennessee in 1985 where we know nobody. We can both be without jobs, I was about to start nursing school, she took work at The Waffle House until she found a hospital lab job and I waited tables at The Sizzlin. We can be so lonely that we buy an 8 dollar light red cat named Ginger for companionship. We do live to tell the story and laugh about it but it was fun then because we took a chance and we lived on faith.

In other words, a lot of times today, we get so busy being structured and responsible that we forget to have fun along our journey.

We forget to live.

When I first heard this one-night story, it struck me as both beautiful and unusual in the year of 2017 and predictability.

Their one night stand in the sand is indeed these two exciting things because going to the beach 8 hours away for one night, sleeping in the back of your vehicle and waking to see the sun rise over the surf; these declare our living and not just our existing.

They scream of grabbing life while we can.

As we all age, and we think that we have seen and we know it all, that WE have the best and safest way, we can also see that old dogs can be reminded of old tricks.

We don’t need to be old just yet because old comes very quickly.

Occasionally, we need to all let go.

We all need to get better at living the journey, living on faith, smelling the roses and enjoying the ride.

These 2 young and beautiful souls challenge us to live on Faith and not always to live safely inside of our preset template of expectations.

Hats off and salutations to Heath and Carissa for reminding us to

live.

That’s the best I can tell about it,

~Mark