Charleston

In celebration of our 5th Wedding Anniversary, Tom and I planned a weekend away on Charleston, SC, a place we've both long wanted to visit.  We planned it for our actual anniversary weekend, which coincided with a hurricane and a flooded destination city.  Though the city was in a state of emergency and closed, unfortunately our flight was not cancelled. Still, the new tickets for 4 weeks later were pretty cheap since no one wanted to go there anymore....except us! So we made it down for Halloween weekend instead, thanks to our flexible babysitter. 

This is our airport custom breakfast pizza. And mid-morning snack pizza. And mid-afternoon snack pizza. With some Charleston BBQ in there for lunch. The first of many good eats. "Whether you eat, drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God."

A couple panoramas from our walking tour that afternoon

I was really moved wandering through this cemetery. Reading, pondering, occasionally weeping over, honoring, the lives and deaths represented by each stone. 

Even in it's beauty and serenity, whether the lives marked here were long and full, or far too short (as many were), I was reminded and stirred by this: that death is not natural. It is not how it's supposed to be. Death is the enemy. Jesus was was outraged by it's effects on his people, his creation, as when he stood before the tomb of Lazarus. No quiet resignation--he came to conquer it. And so he did. With his own. First to break it's power--"O death, where is thy sting?!"--and he comes again to make an end to it entirely:

                  "Death shall be no more."      (Rev 21:4)

Meanwhile, up north, Nana took the kids to Alexandria for some Halloween festivities. 

That's Thomas the Tank engine (w/ handsome driver) on the left, a lobster on the right. 

Chillin with a surprise Halloween guest. 

 Some more cool outbuildings-turned-expensive houses.

Our friends, the guinea fowl. About the size of turkeys and, according to the owner of this house, really no friends at all. 

Me and my hubby of 5 years, slowing down for some late night dessert and coffee.

A discerning YUM. 

Some tenacious roots runneth over.

This was our heaviest stop--the Old Slave Mart Museum, in the building where many of the auctions and transactions took place, especially after the open air markets, such as the ones at the ports behind,  were outlawed. 

Oh the history of evil and pain within these walls where beautiful immortal lives were bought and sold as property, hopes and families destroyed, injustice glorified. I found myself at a loss--I can never understand or enter into that suffering, much less atone for it. But Jesus did. Even as his anger burns white hot for the abominations of slave trade, racism, and injustice against the vulnerable. I pray that I might be changed in a lasting way, for good and for action, by learning about these lives so different from my own privileged one. 

And here, at the bus stop on our last afternoon, is the love of my life. 

Of course, so little of our trip can be reproduced here, or even in all the pictures we took. It's greatest value was being there together, walking and learning together, and getting back on the plane refreshed and ready to hug our sweet kiddos and embrace the wonderful daily life we'd put on hold for a few days.