My vacation of last week is now in life's rear view mirror - and will quickly fade away. But that is the way it goes with vacations. It sure seems to me that "vacation time" moves along at a much faster pace than "real life" time!
Our week, spent in the Finger Lakes region of New York, was thoroughly enjoyable. It was great to spend a huge amount of time with just "me and the wife!" Although we did not walk as much as we normally do on a vacation (due to Sharon's still-recovering knee), we did get to spend a lot of time outdoors - and the weather was downright delightful!
Among many memories of our trip, two stand out. Last Thursday, we spent our evening in the village of Skeneateles. When it came time to head for the car, I realized that my phone was NOT in my pocket. So we began the process of retracing our steps which ultimately led us back to Doug's Fish Fry. About an hour earlier we had sat on a bench in front of this eatery eating ice cream. During that time I had taken my iPhone out of my pocket to remind me to make a call to a friend who had left me a message. Problem was, when we got up to leave - I not only forgot to make the call, I forgot to take my phone! Fortunately, someone spotted it and had turned it in to the owner of the restaurant!
Now fast-forward to Saturday. We began the day at the Ithica Visitors Center. There we got information on two falls that we could see that did not involve a lot of walking. So we began our day in Ithica at the Ithica Falls. From there we traveled to see Taughannock Falls, located about ten miles north of Ithica. For lunch, we drove another five miles north to the Lake Cayuga Creamery, noted for its homemade ice cream. By this time it was early afternoon. We decided to check out the downtown Commons (a pedestrian shopping area) on our way back through town.. After a leisurely stroll (during which I bought a Panda Bear puppet), we climbed into the car to begin our journey back to Pennsylvania. Before pulling out, Sharon realized that she did not have her phone. I dialed up her number ... and no ring ... no vibration sound anywhere in the car. And so we began to retrace our steps. We started with the visitor center since it was nearby. Nope. No phone. We moved on to Ithica Falls (it was only a few minutes from the center). Sure enough, among the crowd of people there enjoying the falls, was her cell phone - just sitting all by itself on top of a large rock. We figured that it must have slipped out of Sharon's pocket as she was putting on her shoes after cooling her feet in the stream below the falls. Someone apparently saw it lying by the stream and placed it on the rock.
As Sharon and I reflected on these two "Why just slap me on the head and call me silly!" experiences (that was, by the way, one of the lines I had to say during my Vacation Bible School stint as Justin Tyme, the bus driver) - we were reminded of just how God takes care of us, his dumb little sheep (and we can be awful dumb at times, eh?). Psalm 23 begins with the words, "The LORD is my shepherd." Notice that we are not told that the LORD is "A shepherd" or "THE shepherd." Instead, David makes it quite personal when he writes, "the LORD is MY shepherd." Now that is a concept that brings me a lot of comfort and hope! For as MY shepherd, he can take the baaaaad circumstances in my life and weave them together for my ultimate good (see Romans 8:28). Wow! What a shepherd!
Thanks for stopping by . . .
pj
