Seeing Is Not Believing, Believing Is Seeing

We're all packed and ready to leave for Hilton Head around 6:00 or 6:30 tomorrow morning. Thanks to all who offered suitcases. I think we finally got just what we needed for the amount we're taking. It was like Goldilocks! This one's too big, that one's too small, and on it went for the afternoon. The goal is to take this week and not think too much about our situation. I am not the type to let it all go, but I don't think anyone can really do that. This is our regular family vacation, and it will be nice to get away from Nashville to a familiar setting and do what we normally do. (Even if that does mean eating at Fudrucker's one night, which I don't particularly love!) The really good news, if I haven't mentioned it, is that we will have three condos this year, so the girls and I will have our own place! We may never come home. I might get arrested when I refuse to vacate the property. My own television in my favorite place on Earth. I love Hilton Head! I'd live there, but I've developed a new fear of bad weather. :) One hurricane would send me over the edge.

Watching one of my favorite movies tonight, "Signs." If you can get past the part about aliens invading the Earth. it has some deep messages. A member of the clergy losing his faith upon the accidental death of his wife, telling his brother that there are two kinds of people. Those who believe in a higher power have hope, those who do not are left helpless and scared in the face of adversity. Do things happen for a reason? When his wife is dying, it seems that she is saying very random things to him, but those things end up saving his family's lives. He recalls her telling him to "see." When he thinks his son is dying he says, "Don't do this to me. Not again. I hate You." In the next breath, he is telling his son to "believe" that he will get better. I think it is a very honest portrayal of how people who suffer great loss really feel so conflicted in their relationships with God. Hate is a very passionate emotion, and not really the opposite of love. If you feel hate, you haven't really disconnected, as much as you claim to not care at all. I don't believe you can feel hatred if you don't also feel love. As the elf in the movie "The Santa Claus" says, "seeing is not believing, believing is seeing." And that... is my sermon on "Signs." So, go forth and believe and then, you will see. :)

I don't know if I'll blog on vacation or not. I'm sure everyone out there will be missing me, and I'll be missing you too!!!!!