A passport and a husband

1.27.14

     On Monday, Alex met me at the Miami airport and we took off on a four-day vacation to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. On the recommendation of friends, we had chosen to stay at one of their all-inclusive resorts, and we were excited to just get away and go be just the two of us in the middle of God's beauty.
      We arrived late at about 11pm local time, and we took a shady looking taxi to the hotel. As we pulled through the security gates, we were greeted by the bell boys at the resort who promptly took our bags. We checked in and headed up to our room.

       It was about 80 degrees still, even though it was the middle of the night. I started changing into my swimsuit when Alex looked at me sideways and said, "What are you doing?"
      "I'm going down to the ocean..." I said, as if it were obvious.
      "In the middle of the night?" He asked, still pretty impressed and confused that I would such and adventurous thing.
       "Yeah, I need to see beauty, remember?"
       "Okay... I guess I'm going with you!" he said, as he started to change.

       The resort had about 50 cabanas out on the sandy beach, and we zig-zagged our way through them and out to the water. I started splashing Alex as I jumped straight in, leaving my shoes a ways up on the shore. After we had gotten use to the water, we finally stopped splashing long enough to notice the stars. There were billions of them, and it was a cloudless night. The moon was out, but the stars were incredibly bright. I was struck by the awesomeness that the heavens bring.
        When I was growing up, I use to love looking at the stars. I would stare out the window in the back of the car as we drove across Texas to visit family. I would drag my sleeping bag out on the driveway and lay and just stare. I don't know many of the constellations, but I was always in awe of the vastness of space.
         It was one of the reasons I loved the verse we put on Kaitlyn's urn. It was a reminder of where I'd come from, and what I'd love seeing growing up. It was a reminder that there is not a soul on earth who could count all the stars, but God put each one of them there. It was a reminder that if He cared so much about something we could only look at from a distance, how much more does He care about each of us that He so carefully crafted, flaws and all?

       Because of His might and power... Not one is missing.