A God Gift

I get to go on a CRUISE!



We are going to this place........I had no idea where Belize was until a couple of days ago. I must admit when I first saw where it was on the map, my fatalistic overactive imagination conjured images of drug lords and kidnappings and assault rifles. Immediately I got on the travel website to get some facts. So far it sounds very intriguing, especially for someone like me who loves history. It has been featured many times on the Travel Channel and also House Hunters International. Two people I told at work immediately started gushing about it....yes, they actually gushed. I feel safer now.

So, how it all got started.........I saw an ad in the paper asking for writing submissions. Well, all I saw at first were the words: WRITE and CRUISE. Contest was sponsored by the good people at  Home Instead Senior Care. They wanted stories about caregivers sacrificing to care for loved ones at home and the winning submission would send the worthy caregiver on a cruise.....I could think of no one more worthy or in need of a cruise than my best friend who has been through so much the past several years with her folks. I tip-tapped my entry in the space....then I had to cut, and cut again.

I whittled it down to two words under the limit and hit "send."

I didn't hear anything for a few months so I figured it was already done, then lo and behold, I got an email day before yesterday. My essay was one of the winners of the caregiver cruise for two so Elaine (and I) will be headed for Belize in January. Wheeeee! I still can't quite believe it. It's a God thing. Sometimes He just gives one of those completely unexpected gifts, God gifts I call them.

And what is so wonderful is that my very generous and humble friend would hand this trip right over to someone else if she thought they were more deserving than she. No, no no, I will not let her.

Of course, when I read my submission again, the first thing I see is a big whopping error that I can't believe I let slip by. But when I think about it, isn't that just the way God works?  If I had sent off a perfectly polished copy my ego would have had every opportunity to get all puffed up, as the Apostle Paul put it so well.

I am so grateful for this opportunity to see more of God's good creation with someone so deserving of this. Someone who has missed so many vacations and left her dreams of another cruise somewhere far in the future, if at all. God had other ideas. I feel like He gift-wrapped it just for her.

"Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. James 1:17