I love His plans so much more than my own.

I have some hind sight equals 20/20 stories for you about God's providence! I have to give Him credit for knowing everything and being so amazingly loving.


For those of you that do not know (or follow my sometimes annoying status updates on FB) we went on vacation a few weeks ago. The whole trip (as are most of our trips) was a series of stories worth crediting to God. First off let me tell you how our trip started.

We got up early on March 4th and left the house at 6am. We stopped at the top of the driveway and asked God to keep us safe on our trip. We then headed toward Savannah, GA with the intent to arrive around lunch time (it is a 6 hour drive.)

Now, when we left there was snow on the grass, but the roads were perfect. About a mile from the house there was a curious police car with lights flashing sitting in a driveway at the bottom of a hill. We slowed down and wondered what he was doing, but... went on our way up the hill... until... we couldn't go any further. We were sliding backwards (ooohh, that's why the cop was there...) the road was covered with ice. Sooo, my worried husband tried to get us up the hill and the harder he tried the crookeder (my own word!) we got until I begged him to just stop trying before we went into the ditch. At this point, we would be ok when the ice melted or Spring came, but if we went into a ditch... that would be an entirely different ordeal. So we sat sideways, on a hill, in a blind curve for 2 hours. Thankfully the cops and the highway department men blocked traffic to keep us safe until the gravel spreading truck came and put down gravel. We finally got out at 8am. We went back to the house for a potty break and then started our trip again!

I can only wonder what God saved us from as we sat there safe and warm, eating breakfast in our van with a full tank of gas... Only God knows!

Our trip from that point was really uneventful. We arrived in Savannah around 3pm and went first to the nursing home to visit my great aunt Helen. She looked terrible. She had fallen and looked as if someone beat her up with a baseball bat. We knew when we saw her; she would not leave the nursing home. We visited a couple of times those 2 days and returned through Savannah on our way home for 2 more visits. We got to see her 4 times within a week. She developed a pretty severe MRSA infection after we left from an untreated urinary tract infection and went to the hospital. She passed away today at the age of 96.

I can only credit God for His timing of our trip. It was kind of an impromptu plan of sorts. We only planned for a month or so which exact week we would go. Usually we plan months and months in advance for a trip like this. God knew that her time was short.

This is only the beginning of all of God's blessings for our trip. While we were at the nursing home, we met a resident, Miss Toni, who we just adopted right there as a grandmother. She was precious and was so encouraging. The girls fell in love with her and now want to visit the nursing home here to meet new friends like Grandma Toni. What a precious lesson for my daughters. They still pray for Miss Toni and all of the "boys and girls" in the nursing home. I think it is adorable that Olivia calls these elderly residents boys and girls.

On our way to FL the next day, we got stuck in standstill, turn off your engine and get out of the car traffic for an hour. It was a blast. Really! The weather was beautiful, 61 degrees and sunny. We were on a bridge overlooking a river. We were safe and together and I felt just like Pollyanna telling Olivia all the reasons to be glad we were stuck in traffic. It worked too. She got glad! As we slowly inched forward once we were moving again, I was like a dog hanging out of the window. I took pictures of everything-- even the work crew on the interstate. I just decided to enjoy myself instead of being crabby because our plans were being tweaked.

While we were in FL, we saw over 200 wild manatees in Blue Springs, went to Disney for free, and went fishing, walking, to an art festival, visited with dear family members... We were truly blessed. We also found out while we were at Disney that they had given out their millionth free ticket which was the goal and limit they set. We went just in time. Wow, God is good.

Today after hearing the news (not surprising) about Helen we plan to head there for the funeral this weekend. It just happens to be Ernie's long weekend which we were planning to use to remodel our kitchen floor (which is about to rot through), but this is so easy to move to his next long weekend in 3 weeks. God's timing in everything is impeccable. Praise Him for everything-- every glitch in my plans that makes room for details of His plans. I love His plans so much more than my own.