My family spent a few days of spring break at the beach. I love the beach, and have been waiting all winter for warm weather and beach time. It’s about a 4-hour drive from my house to my favorite beach spot, but because I’m always so anxious and excited to get there, it seems like it takes forever. I swear the last two-lane, 45-minute stretch of the trip is the longest! But at the intersection at the end of the two-lane stretch, the beach is only about a half mile away.

As we arrived at that intersection last week, I was so excited to see the water. I looked straight ahead and, for a moment, took in the beauty of the Gulf of Mexico. I instantly felt myself relax. But as I focused, my vision revealed the joke it had played on me. Instead of staring into the bluish-green waters of the Gulf, I was staring at the green tin roof of a gas station. I laughed at myself and how eager I’d been to see the water that I easily mistook a dirty ol’ roof for my favorite sight.

When we’re so anxious to see something, our eyes {and minds} can play tricks on us. We can end up focusing on the wrong thing, camping out there, never even realizing we missed the beauty of what we were searching for in the first place.