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| The night, like a familiar blanket, has cast itself upon me. Careless in its manner, with no regard for the plans I've laid, it hides me beneath its gentle, soothing touch. The stresses of the day, so solid and menacing only moments ago, have become like a thousand drops of liquid nothingness... flowing from my body, permeating crisp, white, Egyptian cotton, and evaporating into oblivion. The nine to five has no dominion here. For God appointed the sun to rule the day and the moon to glow until dawn. Thus, with these heavy lids I fall, welcoming this gift of slumber that has been woven into the fabric of His flawless design. I will sleep. I will dream. I will grow. And I will awaken, once more, restored, with a fresh resolve to dedicate this life to the One who makes all my dreams come true. | | |
| There is really nothing like the favor of the Lord. His favor seems to be conveyed and subsequently reflected by everything and everyone around me. Let me tell you a story.
Nat and I had our wedding ceremony on Saturday. It was a dream. During the reception it began to snow heavily. It was a beautiful site from inside the warm reception hall. Of course, it was supposed to snow/rain all day, but the Lord saw fit to give us good lighting for pictures and zero precipitation. We were up late that night sleeping only a couple hours before taking our friend, Amaris, to the airport in Detroit. We returned home and I got online to reserve plane tickets, a rental car, and hotel accomodations for our honeymoon. We decided on Daytona Beach. I was able to get her a round trip ticket while purchasing a one-way ticket on the corresponding flight for myself. Natalie would be returning home on Saturday and I would be flying to Virginia and then to Vermont the following morning.
We left early Monday morning for Detroit. We made it to our gate on time and had a restful non-stop flight to Orlando. Once there, we got our luggage and made our way to the Payless Rentals. I had reserved a Kia Rio (remember micro machines?) for five days. It was only going to cost $90. As we were signing the paperwork I happened to mention that we were on our honeymoon. God's favor took over and we ended up getting upgraded from an "economy class" four levels up to a "full-size" for only $25 more. The car we got was a brand new 2007 Nissan Altima with keyless activation and no anti-shift-shock technology. It was the best!
We had an easy drive from Orlando to Daytona Beach. I had been able to get three nights stay for free using the Marriott points I had accumulated. Due to a lack of sleep, I had forgotten that I was supposed to call the Reward Points toll free number that morning to purchase the 14,000 extra points I would need for two more nights stay. For Gold Card Elite members, it's $12.50 per 1000 points which would give me two more nights for $175 total rather than paying the standard rate of $149 per night. When we arrived at the hotel, I remembered that I needed to call the number before we could check in. A young man answered and I explained that I needed to purchase points. I'm not really sure what happened after that but when I hung up the phone, I had a confirmation number that got me a five night stay and I didn't have to pay anything. God is good. Did I mention that they gave us a refrigerator and waived the extra charge?
The weather was amazing every day last week. We found plenty of exciting things to do. We were given $100 and a 5 day 4 night stay in Orlando just for touring a resort. We got to witness to a guy dressed like a wizard who reads palms and serves as a medium. We ate a lot of delicious food and I put on at least 10 pounds.
Today, God blew my mind. As I mentioned before, I was flying to Vermont and Natalie was flying back to Detroit. I had been able to set it up so that we both had flights leaving at 11:40am. She was flying United and I was flying US Airways. We were both going to North Carolina for our layover. We were running a little late when we returned the rental car but we finally got dropped off at the ticketing counters. Nat and I reluctantly parted ways and planned on finding eachother after we had both checked in. I hauled my heavy luggage threw the sliding glass doors and let out a long annoyed sigh as I stared down a mob of at least 150 angry travelers. This line was long and after standing in it for several minutes, not moving an inch, I looked at my watch. It was 10:40am and my flight was leaving in one hour. What was going on here??? I looked up ahead. All the self-service check in computers were down. No wonder. Trying not to panic, I left my luggage and took a few steps over to the First-class check in counter. "Can I get in this line if I upgrade to first class?" I asked. The answer was yes and there were only about 10 people in line so I got my bags and prepared to clean out my wallet. After standing in that line for a few minutes I noticed that there were four computers up ahead and that no one was using them. I wanted to scream, "Why isn't anyone using those computers to check in!?!" Instead, I walked past everyone and proceeded to check myself in. Interestingly enough, it was just like one of the domestic self-check in computers. It gave me my tickets and the lady tagged my bag. No one asked me for money. No one yelled at me. I looked over at the line that I had been in only moments before. It hadn't moved. I was happy.
Suddenly, I heard my adorable wife's voice off in the distance. She had run into even worse problems over at her counter. She finally found out that they had merged her United flight with my US Airways flight. So, she had to come over the the US Air counter to get her ticket. I was still standing by the computer so I began checking her in. At the very end of the process the computer said that she couldn't be checked in at this time. But we walk in the favor of the Lord so, of course, the kind lady behind the counter took care of it and gave Natalie her boarding passes. All of this took maybe 10 minutes and we headed toward Security together. The line that we should have had to stand in had still barely moved. We made it through security with enough time to get some food. Once at our gate, we decided to check our tickets to see where our seats were. Keep in mind that we hadn't picked out our seats and we were originally on two different flights with two different airlines. Our seats were right beside eachother. I'm not kidding. This was a huge flight too. I'm not even going to try to calculate those odds. God loves us that much.
Once in NC, we found out that my flight had been delayed which meant that instead of me rushing off to my gate, I got to spend another half-hour with my sweet heart before parting ways for a week.
We can't fathom how deep His love for us is. I am, however, understanding it better everyday.
This has been the best week of my life.
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