Best Vacation #TheLoft

"There is a time for everything, a season for every activity under heaven."

Ecclesiastes 3:1, NLT

"God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end." 

Ecclesiastes 3:11, NLT

     It was summer of 2013. My daughter had just graduated from high school, my son would soon graduate from college, and my husband and I were celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary. We'd had many beautiful vacations together visiting our families in Georgia and North Carolina. We decided that January that we should do something different for our summer vacation to commemorate this momentous year of celebrations - we would go to Europe!

     We decided together that we would visit London, Paris & Rome. From there, my husband planned the most fabulous trip ever - with stops at all of the best destinations those cities had to offer in the short amount of time we had in each.

     First came London:

Tower Bridge

One of many famous telephone booths

My Elizabeth & David

Parliament, The Eye, & Big Ben

Next came Paris:

The Eiffel Tower

The Louvre

Montmartre

Beautiful gardens everywhere!

Last stop - Rome:

Needs no caption!

The Colosseum

Trevi Fountain

Piazza Navona

     I am so thankful that we could take this wonderful trip! It was so symbolic for the changing season in our lives.When your children are young, you can't envision what it will be like for them to grow up and move away, nor do you even want to entertain the thought for a moment! When our son went off to school in 2011, and our daughter right after this trip, the reality began to set in that they were all grown up now. I could no longer cling to them as my precious babies who needed me so much, badly as I wanted to. God has been with my husband and me, as we trained them up in the way they should go, and now we trust that they will not turn from it (Proverbs 22:6). Seasons change, and children grow up, and I will forever remain thankful that "God has made everything beautiful for its own time."