God has really been pretty good to me in this life. I live in a nice house, have a great family, have friends that I love and enjoy, even good health. But every once in a while I am blown away by an extra blessing that God gives me. My puppy is one example, why she means so much to me, I can't put into words, but she feels like a gift directly from God to me.
The other day another of these blessings came upon me suddenly. It started out as sort of a joke. We were in church listening to the announcements when our pastor said that there was a short-term mission trip to Milan, Italy that was still open for more people to sign up. It was to be during Thanksgiving, and as this is the year that we are with Joel's family for that holiday, I turned to him and whispered, "Hey Honey, can I go to Milan instead of your parents' for Thanksgiving?" I love my in-laws, and Tennessee is beautiful, but we're talking Italy here.
In all seriousness he looked back at me and said matter-of-factly, "If you can raise the money."
Of course, he knew that money was a sticking point, but he meant it. Out of curiosity I went up to our pastor after church to find out the details, particularly how much it would cost. But while I was waiting in line Joel appeared next to me and said, "Oh, we actually have that money raised already."
What!?!
It's a little complicated to explain here, but essentially, the missionary agency we work for already has that money for ministry expenses in an account for us. We don't have access to it for anything normally, but for this trip we do.
My reply to Joel was something like, "Don't be messin' with Milan!"
But he wasn't messing with me, he was serious, and serious, as well, about me going if I wanted to.
So, I thought maybe I should pray about it. I usually pray a lot about these things, but felt so much excitement about going and how everything was falling into place that I wondered if I already had an answer. Just in case, when I was journaling my prayer to God, I asked, "So, what do you think about Milan?" No immediate answer, just all of my own excitement welling up in my belly.
The next day as I was running, I asked again, "What do you think about me going to Milan?"
And to my delight and surprise, I felt like God said that it gave him great pleasure to give me this gift and that he wanted me to enjoy it.
I felt so loved and special and amazed in that moment, that God would care enough to send me on a trip overseas to see a new place and meet new people and eat real gelato on an actual street in Italy. I couldn't believe that God would love me that much.
But, apparently, he does.
So, as long as I get my passport in time, I will be off to Italy mid-November. I will be going to help teach English to some Italian college students and hopefully to share with them at least one ounce of this love that God has shared with me.
