Our last day...

Sitting alone on the largest wrap-around porch you can imagine, I'm soaking in the quiet and peace of our last day of vacation.  Everyone is upstairs getting ready to start a new day, and I'm wondering how it's possible that this week could have gone by so quickly.  Last week, having gone through a move and then days and days of unpacking...was seemingly endless.  But it had the same amount of hours and days in it that this week had...although I am almost certain the clock ticked in double time this week.  Why is it that real life runs on slow speed and vacation runs on fast forward? 

There should be scientific research on this. 

Here's the thing about vacations...at least in our family.  You learn alot about people when you live in a smallish space with them for 24 hours a day.  Sometimes you learn things you wish you didn't know.  {ie: thongs in the laundry and tofu in the fridge}  Sometimes you learn things that concern you {which will go unnamed} and sometimes you learn things that just make you laugh {ie: SOMEone in our family has germ issues, and placing one of the forementioned thongs on our resident kitty is NOT funny to them...only to us}.  Anyway, the point is this: even when we think we know someone through and through, spending a whole week together is very eye opening.  AND...it gives us a chance put LOVE into practice, because, let's face it...even when we LOVE our family there are irritating quirks that drive us nuts.  Spending an abundance of time with them makes us have to live out who we say we are. 

It's not always easy, because I feel like I just have to say what I think about your attitude, or your immodest outfit, or your way of life.  But it's not my job to convict others and it's not my job to voice my opinion on everything I think.  {That stupid voice inside me tells me I should say exactly what I think....I hate that voice, it really wants to get me in alot of trouble}

My reading for today brought me here....quite appropriate for this last day together:

"Regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It's your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.

Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way." 

Colossians 3

{The Message}