I recently heard a very serious message being preached about revival in our lives.... coming back to the Lord.... getting back to that... honeymoon phase.
And I had to laugh.
Out loud.
Because, my honeymoon was not something that many people would like to get back to.....
And it went a little somethin' like this-
Off we drove in our Olds Eighty-Eight. Nineteen years old and only a month being married, we were on our way north toward the top part of "the mitten". Young, dumb, completely enamored with each other, we had this great idea to stay in a few bed and breakfasts in the Traverse City, Michigan area, and make our way back down the coast, camping as we went.
Our first mistake was trying to go anywhere married at the young age of nineteen. We were asked for parental supervision when we tried to rent jet skies, and needed a wedding certificate upon request to stay at any hotel or bed and breakfast because of our age. That was humbling in itself, and I continued to be humbled as our trip went on.
We did find one thing we could do that didn't need a parent to hold our hand! Parasailing! Brilliant. Neither one of us had every gone, and the idea seemed perfect. It was a little crazy, and it was my twentieth birthday. Who gets to say they sailed in the air over the beautiful Lake Michigan on their 20th birthday on the Fourth of July on their honeymoon?! Me! That's who! So... ladies first. I got myself self all strapped up, and off we went! Except.... I wasn't a big fan of that... rocking-in-the-the-wind feeling, or the bouncing and jerking... I pretty much wasn't a fan of it at all. When my turn was over, I was reeled back in, and was informed that my young groom couldn't go up unless I went back up with him because of the wind. I loved this man and would do anything for him, so I agreed to go up again with my husband fastened up behind me. We got up in the air and there was more of the jerking and rocking and up and down and.... then I puked. But, it wasn't just a puke that goes down with gravity because, remember all that wind and stuff? It carried my vomit back, streaked it across my face and hair, and had me making all sorts of wretched noises. But, not only did I puke all over my own face, I threw up all over my husband's feet. Yes, he had puke-feet thanks to Yours Truly. When he felt liquid between his toes, he couldn't figure out how he had gotten splashed all the way up there in the air. Until I turned toward him, making ugly Chewbacca noises, and he saw my puke-streaked face. He instantly started doing everything in his power to try to get us down. He was waving his arms all over the place, yelling and shouting, all the while I'm moaning and staring at his hairy toes with my puke on them. I had such dreams of being a trophy wife.... someone Seth would love and cherish.... He was just enjoying the gorgeous view of the majestic Lake Michigan, and he got barfed on. So much for trophy wife, because, last time I heard, trophy wives don't throw up on their husband's feet on their honeymoon. And to make it worse, being the young thing I was, I had a strange obsession with Easy Cheese. So that was all I had eaten that morning for breakfast: Easy Cheese and crackers. You can imagine what that urp was like. We eventually made it down to the boat pulling us, where I then scraped the half dried throw up off of my face, and Seth got to rinse his defiled feet off in the lake. He was not happy with the driver of the boat because he had not brought us back to safety in a timely fashion after Seth had been thrashing about and yelling to get us out of the air. The driver calmly said, "I just thought you were pretending to be a bird up there..."
And it got even...stranger. After we spent our time in Northern Michigan, we traveled back down the coast and camped at a few different campsites. We pitched our tent and spent some time on the beach, but on one of those first nights, there was a pretty bad rain storm. And, of course, I have to use the bathroom in the middle of it. Not wanting to squat in the rain, I jumped in our car and went to find the community bathrooms... leaving my glasses behind. So, as I drove off in the pouring rain, lightning, and thunder, searching for bathrooms, I couldn't see a thing. There were no lights guiding my way, and, as I quickly found out, I was not on any sort of road or path. I'm not sure where I actually got off course, but the next thing I knew, there was a bang and an abrupt stop. I had driven off the road and ended up driving through the camp site, where I then ran head on and full speed ahead into a picnic table in front of someone's camper. Heart in my throat,I quickly threw my car in reverse and did my best to make it back on the road. To this day, I'm so thankful that the table was in front of the camper.... and not the other way around. I made it to the bathroom safely, got back to our campsite, snuggled back in the air mattress next to my new husband, and laid there awake for a while, thinking about trouble I almost got myself into.
Those are just a few of the "appropriate" things. I don't want to have to go into hiding after writing this, you know.
Our honeymoon did have many good things, too. We decided on that trip that, whenever we traveled together, we would buy a new album to listen to on the way back. What was the album my sweet husband let me buy? Destiny's Child, Survivor. "Nasty Girl" will always remind me of my honeymoon. Don't judge.(We tried to order nonstop hip hop off of one of those music commercials before we left, but we didn't get it on time.)
I hear people talk about their glorious honeymoons to Hawaii or Florida, or the Virgin Islands, and I just laugh. Not for us! But we can laugh hysterically at the ridiculousness of our week away. And we can hold each other a little closer and smile because, we may not have had the most exotic vacation but we're making it, and we're making it well. With the Lord in the lead, we can love each other twelve years later the way we do. Some day, I want to revisit some of the places that we made all of those memories at.
(Blasting "Survivor" all the way, of course.)
