Life lessons at Sea World

Last Tuesday we drove home from our Texas vacation.  Of the 20 times I've been to Texas, I've hated it 19.  I'm a minimalist who doesn't like humidity.  In that sauna of a state, everything is huge, large, grand, and arrogant.  Doesn't get much worse for me.  My sister Heidi, however, is queen of persuasion, and offered me a free trip to San Antonio with her, her husband Jay, and their three children (Ashtynne 7, Tarynne 3, Brody 1).  The catch?  Babysit so Jay & Heidi could have a couple of date nights.  Aunt Heather is my favorite of all of my roles in life, and with that, off we were for 9 days of bliss (in spite of Texas).  Little did I know, I was going to learn a great big lesson from three little people. 

We stayed at a very cool hotel in San Antonio.  It was an Inn & Suite, with a giant pool, cabana, play ground area, and a secluded jungle-esque hot tub.  The two girls LOVE to swim.  They would swim, eat, play in the playground, swim some more, sleep, wake up, and want to swim again.  On the 4th & 5th, we had a two day pass to Sea World.  This was my first time to Sea World, and it was AMAZING!  I'm not a big fan of theme parks usually, but this one tops the charts.  All of the shows were amazing, the 4D theater was amazing, the frozen lemonade was amazing, even the fireworks were great (although we cut it short to beat some traffic). We were there for 13 hours on the 4th.  We left very tired, but very ready to sleep well and hit up day 2.

So we wake up and start to get around, and were immediately bombarded with questions of, "Can we play on the playground?" followed by ten additions of  "But pretty please? ... pretty, pretty, PRETTY please?!"   Really?  You're not ready for Sea World again?  Then it was, "Well can we at least swim?"  What?!  There's a whole water park IN Sea World!  How naive!  There's something much better about 20 minutes away...  just trust us on this one!  Did you forget already?  It may be one thing if we had only talked about Sea World, and they had never experienced it, but they KNEW the greatness of Sea World!  Why would they put it off?  How could they choose anything less?  

I see people, even myself, naively choose a sandbox over Sea World.  I feel like God says, "Really?  I mean there's Jesus.  You know Him, and love Him.  You've felt grace and you've felt life, and you're choosing that?  You're choosing less?  Did you forget already?"  Thank you Jesus for grace and always remind me lest I forget and choose less.