What I Learned on My Summer Vacation

To tell you the truth, I’ve never really gotten “Disney.” Their movies are a mixed bag and their stores are full of items that, with the exception of my daughter’s Roo, become very expensive dust collectors at our home. And then I went to Disney World.

Let me preface my story by saying that our Sea World, San Antonio family vacation could have been an instructional video on how not to do a family vacation.

That vacation included a hotel suite that was a suite in name only, conveniently adjacent to train tracks with a 2 am route. I navigated us from the hotel to the park fifteen miles away in two hours. We were ten minutes late to every animal show, caught the last Shamu act and drove back to Dallas on brake pads so low they bounced with every flutter of the petal. Because being passed at 75 miles per hour on I-35 isn’t exciting enough.

But Disney was prepared for the four of us. Our Lion King suite was adorable, a comfortable 72 degrees with an absolutely spotless bathroom. The food was delicious and there were many healthy options if you so opted (I didn’t). A smiling, knowledgeable employee stood around every ten feet, happy to answer the same question he’d answered all day. And as if all that wasn’t enough, I got a FREE first timer pin so everyone within twenty feel would know I was clueless. (My family refused to wear their pins.)

I get it now. Disney doesn’t nickel and dime you (that’s right, they get it all up front). They want you to come back to celebrate every major life event so that you can’t remember any special moment without thinking of them. But what Disney is really all about, what I couldn’t see until I went there is that Disney is selling innocence. A ticket or trip to a magical place where right and wrong is clear cut, things are simpler, and the pace is, well, hotter (at least in Disney – Orlando).

Innocence is in short supply. There was a time in my life I longed to rewrite my history, start over and be someone I could never be with the decisions I’d made. But I found innocence through salvation in Jesus Christ. In Him, I have a clean white robe, beautiful glowing skin and a new start. No past. No mistakes. No kidding.

He is what we can not be. With Him, we can be what we are not. Without Him, the world needs any type of innocence it can get.

Disney will be in business a long time.