I'll take the easily lobbed, softball questions thrown from my girls...anytime!

Last week, I was on vacation with the family. We decided to go off the beaten path this year and rent a house at Holden Beach, North Carolina on the recommendation of some friends at church.

Great recommendation!

Myrtle Beach seems to be the vacation-Mecca for most of the Southeast. It's busy, loud and packed this time of year. All the things Holden Beach is not. At just around 45 minutes north of Myrtle, all the bells and whistles are available to you in a short drive if you like. We took the trip a couple of evenings, and I would have been perfectly content staying north.

Like most people, vacation is time I use to unwind, recharge and spend uninterrupted time with the family. If I want excitement and round-the-clock festivities...I'll go back to Vegas.

After we settled in on Sunday, the rest of the week followed a workable, enjoyable routine. I was usually the first one up around 7 am, so I would take the necessary logistics to support our crew of 10 to the beach early and set up. Loved it. Setting up early wasn't necessarily a requirement because the gorgeous beaches were never crowded. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the solitude and time for reflection sitting alone on the beach with just my thoughts and prayers.

Something my beloved Crazy Tomato said early in the trip stuck with me all week. Looking out at the ocean one day, she states "You mean God made all this for us?!" Her enthusiasm was both genuine and refreshing, as is the case with most three-year olds. I thought deeply on her comment the next morning after setting things up and taking my customary seat alone looking out at the Atlantic. Majestic is a word thrown around far too loosely in our language. Many things are awesome, fewer are splendid and even still fewer are magnificent...in the proper use of the words. But majestic should be an adjective reserved for those very special, very rare encounters in life that only the presence of God Himself could supplant in scope and scale.

Oceans fit that bill in my mind. Maybe the mountains where I live have the same sense of inspirational awe to people who live at the beach or in the plains of the Great Midwest. Just guessing I suppose. Having been in the middle of two of our vast planet's oceans while aboard deceptively large yet unassumingly insignificant ships, it becomes even more apparent just how majestic God's earthly ponds truly are in comparison to other matters we often find that are larger than words can describe.

Oceans, mountain ranges, sunrises/sunsets and even rainbows are all just regular reminders of the lunacy instilled in the theories of random chance being the creator of the universe we occupy. Sheer lunacy. While science forges arrogantly forward in the futile attempt to create life outside the realm of natural order, I find great comfort holding to a faith that still makes far more logical sense than assuming our kind is as good as it gets...and even still one day will forever vanish from all recordings and echos of a place in time we call history into oblivion. Just pure lunacy.

I just don't think vacation would be enjoyable holding to such a hopeless belief...no matter how sparse people were at the beach.

Yes my little Crazy Tomato...He made it ALL for us. That's just how much He loves us.