About two years ago, I was at Big Stuf camps with a group of wonderful teenagers, when I heard Andy Stanley talk about how our attitudes and actions our experiences in relationships and life. His two catch phrases stuck with me: Attitude is Everything & Application Makes All the Difference
Many of you may know that my family recently took a 24 road trip. The goal was to re-connect with one another as we visited special people and places in Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. We dreamed dreams and had visions for the entire spring semester as we moved closer and closer to our fantastic family adventure.
Isn't it funny how you always have grand dreams and romanticized visions of what your family vacation will be like? We see ourselves in one of those cool outdoorsy car commercials where everyone is one with nature and each other, the weather is beautiful, and a new age song plays in the background demanding an emotional response of happiness and contentment. Maybe for some of you this becomes a reality - but for the Harris family, our adventures never seem to go off without a hitch; and this one was no different.
So, its day one and we are on our way for our first ever family camping experience at Chicisaw State Park in TN. We are thrilled. We are prepared. We are ready to be one with nature and one with each other. We are ready to rediscover our humanity and God's creation. We are ready to have fun! And in true Harris fashion, we are about 45 minutes down the road, our kids are melting down in the backseat fighting with one another about some inconsequential disagreement. All too quickly there was screaming, yelling, and meanness spiraling out of control in the back seat and the before I even realized what was happening, we are pulled over having a time out on the side of the highway.
Application makes all the difference. What parent really wants to start off their vacation with disciplining one of their children. Is that fun for anyone? But when we talk about doing something and never follow through, we create huge problems for ourselves. This applies to everything in life.
Think about it.
How often do you argue with your spouse or parents over things that someone said they would do but never did?
Or how often do you find yourself yelling at your kids because they were supposed to do something but never did.
At work, at home, at school, in relationships - application makes all the difference.
We can talk all day about the kind of people we want to be, our hopes, our dreams, and our principals. We can even educate ourselves about the best ways to handle the various obstacles in life, but without application, its all worthless. Until we are willing to make sacrifices to follow through, its nothing but words and ideas. The action--the application makes our intentions a reality.
After a short visit from a state trooper and twenty minutes of tears and sweat, the necessary apologies were made and the Harris Family Adventure continued - without additional disciplinary action needed. The next 5 hours were pretty uneventful. We listened to music, played the alphabet game, ate, slept, tweeted, Facebooked, and texted until finally we pulled off the interstate. We stopped at the grocery to get the last few things we needed for dinner that night and made our way to the campsite, which couldn't have been more perfect. It was beautiful. A nice flat spot on the lake with a picnic table and a fire ring setting beneath a thick canopy of trees providing lots of shade. The playground was just a five minute walk up the pavement with a newly renovated bathhouse for restrooms and showers. All I could think was "It's going to be a great weekend."
To avoid additional chaos, my husband, Jason, decided to take on the tent alone while the kids and I explored our surroundings, gathered wood for a fire, and made our way to the playground and bath house. After all, we'd been in the car several hours and we all gotta go sometime. So, ran in to relieve myself in the bath house while the kids played together on the swing set and all of a sudden I heard loud noises outside that are only getting louder by the second. I made my way outside as quickly as possible. I was greeted abruptly with strong winds and pouring rain. By the time we make it back to camp we all look like we climbed out of the lake, including Jason who has been working on the tent in the rain.
Over the next twenty minutes, we figured out a way to get into some dryer clothes, packed up, and got back into the car. Just as we were about to leave our failed camping trip behind, thinking we had confronted all of the possible mishaps, I roll over Jason's foot with the car. Yes - you read that correctly. I rolled over - JASON'S FOOT with THE CAR.
This is not the trendy car commercial vacation we had in mind. Is this vacation cursed? I am ashamed to admit that I found myself asking, "Why us? What did we do to deserve this?" ... but I am also proud to say that my perspective changed quickly. It had to. That attitude wasn't going to help anyone.
This was just the beginning of our 24-day Harris Family Adventure. We recovered from our epic failure at the campground and found our way to Memphis, adding an unexpected stop in our summer journey. Thankfully, we found lots of free activities in Memphis. We read books to one another at a phenomenal library, we visited the ducks at The Peabody Hotel and made wishes in the fountain, and we learned about the Mississippi River at Mud Island. The kids learned how to play Yahtzee. We boated, sunbathed, visited our loved ones, and shared many more family firsts. Most importantly, we worked hard to love one another, to keep a positive attitude, and to live our faith together as a family by forgiving one another, serving one another, and laughing with one another.
Attitude is everything. Application makes all the difference.
Of course we continued to hit bumps in the road on our trip because for the Harris family, the car commercial vacations aren't a reality. Instead, we tend to do life a tad more authentically and I am beginning to think that our actual vacations are better than those car commercials anyway.
