I was encouraged recently to see again that God cares about the smallest details of our lives, and He wants to be involved 100% if we allow Him to be involved. I had been wanting to go and see Sunshine in Davao City, Philippines for quite a while. I always said that when my children grow up, I wanted to go see them wherever they were all around the world. Not only would I get to go see many places that I had never gone, but I would also be able to eat their food, mess up their kitchen, leave all the lights in the house on, and slam the door on my way out! This was the perfect chance to do all that plus hopefully encourage Sunshine in the path that God has called her.
I knew that I could just go online and purchase a ticket, but that would cost a lot of money. I had in my mind the perfect trip, and I also had airline miles saved up that I could use. I knew that it wasn't likely that I could get all those factors together to get the ideal trip, but being a positive thinker, I decided to try. I tried for days off and on when I got the opportunity, but nothing was working out. I wanted to use my miles rather than pay cash, and I wanted to make a trip that hopefully wouldn't be so exhausting. I well remember when I flew to China and how tired I was, and I knew that not only would this trip be even longer, but my body is quite a few years older. To me, the perfect trip would allow me to leave directly from Charlotte and have a stopover in an interesting, but relatively, safe place. Now keep in mind that a stopover is different from a layover. A layover is just a short stop in an airport, but a stopover means you leave the airport and stay for a day or two, then head on to your final destination. I wanted to get a ticket where I could stopover, rest, do some sightseeing, then continue a few days later on the trip. Hopefully, that would relieve some of the exhaustion and allow the "perfect trip" for me.
Well, as I mentioned, I couldn't make it work. The out of pocket cost was too much because they add huge fees to stopovers (some stopovers are cheaper just to go ahead and buy two tickets), and they didn't have enough reward seats to use my miles. I got discouraged and decided that if I was going to go, I would just have to do it the hard way, be miserable on planes for hours on end and finally arrive totally exhausted. I picked out a ticket that seemed the best miserable option and decided to buy it. My sister-in-law, who is travelling with me got her paperwork to me and I decided to go ahead and buy the ticket realizing that my ideal trip just wasn't going to pan out. I got the ticket on the screen ready to purchase, but had to get up to take care of something in the house.
In the meantime, my little electronics-loving one year old spied that mom was away from the touch screen laptop that she had been wanting to touch. Knowing that her mother never allows her to touch her computer, she decided to touch it anyway and purposely and willfully simply clicked off my open screens. Yes, I know that sounds pretty awful for a one year old, but that is what she did. When I returned and saw what she had done, I just added it to my long lists of unfortunate happenings for the day and realized I would have to start all over on finding and booking the ticket. No doubt, I properly responded in a Dr. Dobson type way also to the little one year old who had deliberately messed up my day.
When Rick came in wondering if I had purchased the ticket, I told him what had happened ( no doubt I said it in a bright, cheerful voice), and that I was having to do it all over even though it was late in the evening. Being such a great husband, he started getting the helpful children in bed so I could finish purchasing my less than ideal trip. I, on the other hand, wasn't meditating on the fact that God could use babies that love touch screens to ultimately work His purposes.
As I started again to purchase the ticket, I realized that the internet had quit. I don't know about your service, but ours rarely goes down, but that night it did. While it was on, it was so painfully slow that I couldn't do anything. A screen would pop up, I would fill in the information and then after many minutes, the next screen might or might not show up. I got frustrated with it and decided to go to bed and just forget it.
However, those of you who know me know that I don't give up easily...After I got all the way ready for bed, I decided to try one last time to purchase the ticket so I wouldn't have to mess with it the next day, but, no, the internet was still off. (It's been so long so the internet was down that it's hard to remember when it was, but God was obviously working even though I didn't know it then.)
In the meantime, I slept off some of my frustration with babies and broken internet, and it came to my mind to try something different. It was like one of those "aha moments" when I realized that I should try another approach to get my ticket, so I walked in to my computer. This time the internet was working as I tried my new plan to get the ticket. I tried all day, repeatedly calling the airlines and trying to get them to agree with my plan and do what I wanted to do. I would say that I am pretty successful with getting people to do what I want them to do. They agreed to do what I wanted to do, but their price was way more than I wanted to pay. The last call I made to Delta connected me to a very friendly man who told me that the ticket would start at about $2,000 which was quite a bit more than the no cash ticket that I wanted to get with my miles.
Once again, I got discouraged, and decided that this might not work after all. One last time, I entered my search data, but this time, being so tired, I made a mistake when I entered my data. I put in my departing and return dates backward making my return from the Philippines before I even left, then I clicked enter. Well, computers do apparently have a brain, because it immediately brought up an error message at the top of the screen. I am sure it said something like, "Error...even dummies know that you can't come back before you ever left." But what caught my attention was right underneath the helpful error message. Right there in front of me was exactly what I had been looking for! The error message was there with all of it's bold letters, but directly underneath it was exactly what I had been looking for all this time. There was my perfect trip just sitting there in front of my eyes with the bold error message stamped across the top of the page.
At that point, my loving children all seemed to converge upon me with desperate needs, but ignoring them like all good mothers sometimes have to do, I quickly started entering my data, wondering if this would actually work. I clicked enter and probably literally held my breath as I waited for something to happen. No, the internet didn't fail, neither did my daughter quickly slide her pudgy hand in to click off my screen. There in front of me appeared my ideal trip for the grand price of $0 and a very reasonable number of miles leaving me with plenty of extra miles for my next trip around the world. Not only that, but I had just purchased an identical ticket for my sister in law who is going along to help me manage myself, for $850--an amazing deal for an around the world ticket! I could hardly believe it! It was the same trip that I had just moments before called Delta about and told it was going to be $2,000. Leaving Charlotte at a reasonable time of day, reasonable layovers that didn't require me to jog through the airports at my age, and a three day, two night stopover in Tokyo was what the screen said I had just purchased! I was so excited that I couldn't sleep that night, but it was definitely worth it!
The Bible says that God loves to give us good things. It makes me think of how sometimes my little girl will ask me for Cheerios so I pour her some. However, once in a while, just to make her smile, I will pour her a bowl of Cheerios, then put a spoon of sugar on top. That is just like God. God gives us what we need, but sometimes I think he scoops a spoon of sugar on top, then sits back and watches us smile.
I will be on my way in a few months, and the best thing about it is that I don't have to worry any more. Just like God gave me my maple syrup when I traveled a few months ago (look at my previous blog posts), I know that He has arranged this trip. I don't have to know that everything will go perfectly because I may be blogging in a few months about something that went imperfectly. However, I do know that He planned this trip, and so I can rest that He will be right beside me, only allowing what is best for me. It's comforting to know that He cares about the smallest details, and that He will be with me. (And for those who know me so well, I'm sure that is a comfort to you also, because you know I need all the help I can get. Yea, that was me that shook up the TSA by bringing a stack of magnets in my briefcase. Having great hindsight, I realize now that was not thinking too well.)
I hope this encourages you in whatever God has planned for you today. God can work through inquisitive babies. He can work through internet shortages, and He can work through error messages to give you that scoop of sugar that makes your day!
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