It's Gonna Be Sunny in Tybee, A Story of Faith

For several years when my daughter was young, between the ages of 6 and 10, she and I took an annual trip to Tybee Island, Georgia for a vacation before school started. She went to private school, so she didn't start school in the middle of August, as all public schools in the south do, she started when you should start, the week after Labor Day. So we would head down there after public school opened and have the beach to ourselves. The tradition started after we saw Parent Trap, that cute remake with the then cute Lindsay Lohan. The twin who lived with her father took a trip with him right before school started every year, so we started to do it too.

One year, she was seven I believe, we headed out down I 75 South, Tybee bound. We both had on our floppy sunhats, and were so happy to be on the road. We stopped in Forsyth for our McDonalds, which was our traditional road food, and got back on the road as fast as we could. One of the many things that is great about Tybee is that you can leave the ATL at 8 am and have your toes in the sand by noon. We were staying on schedule.

This particular day though, after we left McDonalds, it started to rain. I thought Uh oh, I hope it doesn't rain all week, there is not much to do with a seven year old at Tybee if we can't go to the beach. Pretty soon, it was pouring rain, and I'm thinking, we better go back home!

I glance over at TJ, and she is just grinning, and looking so happy. She had taken off her sunhat though. She saw the look on my face, grabbed her sunhat, jammed it onto her head and declared, "it's gonna be sunny in Tybee!" I wanly smiled back and thought, what a hopeless optimist my daughter is!

As we drove down I 16, rain coursing the windsheild, I was all gloom and doom in my head, but everytime I even glanced over at her, she smiled at me and said, "it's gonna be sunny in Tybee!"

As we drove through Savannah, I was actually frightened. It was raining so hard that there were minor floods running down the gutters of the streets. It was so dark out I thought I would never again see the sun, and the lightning strikes were immense. I considered stopping and getting a room in Savannah, instead of making the trip out to Tybee. Tybee Island is the last of a string of Islands off the coast of Georgia, near Savannah. From the first island to Tybee is eighteen miles. I was truly afraid, as hard as it had been raining, that some of the bridges may be washed out.

There was Taylor Jane, beaming, hearing nothing of stopping in Savannah, it was gonna be sunny in Tybee! It is such a lonely feeling, far from home, alone with your seven year old daughter and fightened of something. You feel such enormous pressure, the situation as well as not letting your daughter know that you are scared to death!!

I kept driving, fearing that I was going to drive into a flood so deep we would be stranded. That's how hard it was raining. Not once did Taylor Jane express any fear or doubt. She was so sure it was going to be sunny in Tybee it made me continue on, as frightened as I was.

We drove across the first island in the rain, as we passed over the second or third island I began to see off in the distance in front of us the sky clearing a bit. You could see the end of the storm, even though we were still in it. With ten more miles to go, we were still in rain, but we could see blue sky out in the distance.

I'll never forget the feeling I had coming over a rise just before reaching Tybee and seeing clear, blue sky ahead. I almost cried.

Triumphantly, she screamed, " it's sunny in Tybee"! As we got closer and closer it began to clear, by the time we drove onto Tybee, we were in sun. It was indeed, sunny in Tybee.

I was flabbergasted as our toes hit the sand, albeit a little later than expected, the rain had slowed us down, but we had come through the storm and here we were, on the beach at Tybee on a gorgeous sunny day. I was convinced her belief alone had made it happen.

That story has become a metaphor for our lives, whenever a situation seems bleak or dark, we always say "it's gonna be sunny in Tybee!"

Thinking positive always makes every situation better. Belief alone can change any situation. We just have to have the faith of a seven year old who knows her week at the beach was going to be sunny!