THE ROCKS
My best guess is that it was 36 years ago when we first vacationed with our girls on Holiday Isle in Destin…a tradition that continued almost every year that they were with us. A highlight was the daily walk down the beach to “The Rocks” (as we called the East Pass Jetty) where we would climb around and act goofy. Today was the first time since I blew out my knee years ago, that I have walked the 1.3 miles from our current place, down the beach to The Rocks. Along the way, I so fondly remembered those many walks long ago and the screams and giggles of our Cayce and Jamie and their various friends. How I cherish those memories.
Although it was a little sad that those days are long gone, I was overcome with a grateful heart that both our girls are today making grand memories with their families. And that they have been given the gift of enjoying their children’s giggles and screams of laughter with their loving husbands.
As Diane and I walked the 1.3 back to our condo, I was conscious of how much even the past few day’s stormy weather had shifted the sand creating an unusually flat walking surface. Over the last 36 years, the sands of the Holiday Isle beach have moved and shifted a lot. Hurricanes and tropical storms have reshaped the beach multiple times. But The Rocks are just the same as they were when Cayce and Jamie were little girls.
I was reminded of Jesus’s words at the end of the Sermon on the Mount:
““Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.””
Matthew 7:24-27 NIV
And my prayer, as I walked, was that Diane and I not only took our girls to The Rocks, but that we, by the grace of God, lived out our commitment to build our home on that solid rock.
I know she did a much better job of that than I did.
