My body met 4:30 am with several thoughts, the first of which was a calculation of how many hours I'd slept, the second an affirmation to myself that I did indeed sleep enough to get through the day as a functional person, followed by the decision that waking up would be acceptably safe for the rest of the human  population who will encounter me today.

As soon as the third thought, "Well, I could just sleep another hour" emerged, several simultaneous hungers hit me, the most strong being a craving for an adventure.  Being the great sister that I am, I made sure to wake my siblings up.  Mostly it was selfish because I didn't want to experience something fun alone (which is an alarming indication that my introverted self may not be too introverted anymore), but I also didn't want them missing out on something memorable just because they wanted some extra dreams...Sunrise watching time!  As a family, we took a roadtrip to visit my dad's mom in Florida, who I haven't seen in over four years.  Today is the day we drive to see her from the place we are staying while in Florida.  Thus, the early morning wake up and the attentiveness of my heart to its need for a satisfying adventure may be largely due to the Christmas morning excitement in seeing my grandma, a visit I especially cherish with the recent loss of my mom's mom.

As I prepared to watch the sunrise (which is just now rising at 5:50 am, so I definitely beat it), I went into the little kitchen in our home away from home and made some breakfast by the incredibly romantic refrigerator light. (Otherwise, I would have had to light up the whole place and no one wants my mom to wake up before she's ready. ) Coffee, eggs and toast.  Quite the culinary artist here.

 Now I am sitting on our back porch, watching beautiful colors paint the sky, trying hard to resist the urge to go sit on the lifeguard chair that's supposedly only reserved for lifeguards, while yelling (softly) at my sister for taking sleepy pictures of everyone else with the threat that she will put them on every social media site in which she participates.

Oh the joys of family.

In the midst of all the morning action, I was thinking a bit on some of the harder things in life that have met my family this year.  I imagined someone coming up to me with the claim that they found a way to totally pass around all the hard things in life, arriving at death battle free.  All I could see was this big straight line that formed a rectangle, surrounding the mountains and valleys but avoiding them completely.  Ahh yes, battle free.  And also a complete waste of life.     A billions quotes from far more bright and philosophical people could probably support that feeling in a much more eloquent way, but  I just know that when I think about the difficult things, I remember how each time beauty found a way of chasing down and overtaking the ugly.  And without fail, the beautiful always overshadowed what seemed, for a time and in human eyes, disfigured.  Sometimes I struggle with questioning some of the desires that are in my heart, wondering if they are just me running away from dysfunction or trying to escape reality, but this morning I felt God whisper to my heart His reality, "Caitlin, your heart holds eternity inside of it, and eternity is full of whispers that you can hear...whispers that are full of promise.  You don't have to be afraid that your desires or dreams are somehow a result of something broken inside of you, trying to get fixed or trying to run away from what's hard.  You should know yourself well enough by now to know that you haven't made a habit of fleeing what's difficult.  You are running into beauty, and your heart is learning how to connect with my heart and dream the way I do.  There is nothing dysfunctional or wrong about that."

I felt an invitation from Jesus to enter into a new phase of freedom.  There is no way I'm saying no to that.

Time to pack up and head to grandma's house!  Can't wait to give that beautiful woman a huge hug.