Oh, Mexico!

 This week I had the opportunity to travel to Tapachula, Mexico with my newest friend, Nancy...who just happens to be 75 years old.  We are an unlikely but very compatible traveling duo and I have had such a great week with her.

I didn't have any grand expectations of our trip to Mexico, but I do believe every day there are lessons we can learn if we are open to accepting them.  My main objective, I believe, was to invest in my relationship with Nancy.  She is an unexpected blessing not only in my life, but in the lives of my kiddos.  She has unabashedly taken on the role of grandmother to my kids and I am absolutely loving it.  My mother in law said Nancy "is made to be a grandmother" and I couldn't agree more!

Nancy's story is like most, with layers upon layers just waiting to be uncovered.  I am so pleased that the Lord decided to write her story into ours, and ours into hers. I cannot wait to see how it all ends up.  In the meantime, we went to Mexico:)

As I said, I had no expectations. Aside from being a friend and travel companion, I did not expect any major life lessons.  But as I sit in my hotel room (mariachi in the background) on the second to last night, I believe I am learning a very valuable lesson.

When I left home, I left a very sick household.  Husband, the kids, even the in-laws.  All sick.  The timing was terrible and it was not easy to go.  I still wonder if I made the right decision in leaving.  However, because I was far away and completely helpless, I have had the opportunity to pray often for my family, the only help I could provide.  Praying for them is also something I don't do nearly enough.

Alex is Nancy's grandson, who we are in Mexico to visit.  He is working at an orphanage in Tapachula this year.  It has been great to talk with him this week and get a fresh perspective from a twenty something with no family of his own yet.  It is easy to be enthusiastic about what he is doing right now, and a bit envious.  He just graduated college and is spending a year in Mexico.  After that he is on to Ireland then who knows where else.  He has big plans, and a life full of possibilities and promise.  It would be easy to romanticize a life of travel and independence.

But what I realized this week is I have a life of possibilities and promise too, and I have to look no further than my own living room to find it.  My adventure looks much differently than Alex's, but it is no less exciting.  It is no less fulfilling, mysterious, or wonderful.  My adventure includes unearthing the girl my husband fell in love with many years ago.  It includes kissing my kids' boo boo knees, helping them navigate the world of dating, and making play forts out of sheets.  It includes so much more.

As a mom I realize I have the capacity to set the tone for my entire household.  I can see each day as a new adventure with a story that will be retold time and time again, or I can see it as drudgery (another lunch to pack, another book report due, another shopping list).

I want to choose the adventure.  I want all the little monotonous things to add up to a life that is full of love and laughter, a story worth being told.  So adios, Tapachula.  I am heading home.  Adventure awaits me there:)