I Believe

God cares about vacations

One of my personal struggles in life is believing that God cares about some things that are important to me. I know, I know! That sounds awful and how can I even struggle with that when so often, as in, on a daily basis, I have little issues arise that I sigh a quick prayer to God for and guess what? He comes through! I'm a pro at losing/misplacing things and I honestly think that God probably gets weary with telling me where to look for things but He hasn't seemed to have lost patience with me over this malady of mine yet. So that being said, why would I ever think that things that bring me joy would not be of interest to Him. In my feeble mind I have long entertained the thought that something that is “just for fun" is probably not that important. In fact, it would be kind of a frivolous thing that is neither here nor there to God whether I do it or not. The purpose of this little writing is to tell you how I have found out differently!

Going by my handle on Substack and for all the people who know me well(and even some who don't know me well), it is very evident that I love England. That love started in London but that is another story which I have already written about. In 2024, by some magic of planning, I had two trips to London on the agenda. (That is also another story.) Now I will tell you how this plays in to my opening thoughts.

We were scheduled to leave for London on February 28, 2024. On February 20, some friends and I had a shopping day in a city several hours away from us. That evening, in route home from a very enjoyable day out, I received a text from my daughter asking me if I knew what was going on at Papa's! Her father-in-law is on the fire department and had told them that a call for cardiac arrest had come through for Papa's address. You can well imagine what my heart did! We were still an hour or so from home and the news kind of put a damper on the rest of the ride home. Now, one reason I was hesitant to even tell this story was because I, in no way possible, want it to sound like my trip to England was more important than my father. That is very far from fact. Needless to say, my thoughts went many directions in the remaining hour of that ride. One of those directions was, “what about this scheduled trip?” I prayed then that God would take care of the particulars.

Very thankfully, we arrived home, dad was taken care of and was soon back at home, doing relatively okay under the circumstances. So much of the first five months of 2024 is a blur to me anymore, that I am not sure if he even had to stay in the hospital that time or not. That is all a different story that I really do not plan to write about, though.

February 28 came and we were in route to London, feeling fairly secure that dad would be fine for the time being. We enjoyed our stay, which you can read about in previous posts if you care to. On March 14, we packed our bags and headed home. On March 15, my father was back in the hospital. Looking back, I just feel like God really cared about that trip to London!

Rolling forward through the year, we come to September of 2024 and the next trip. Our flight was scheduled to leave on September 27. Well, welcome to Florida, the land of hurricanes! A few days before departure we were hearing ominous rumblings about a major hurricane. It was supposed to be BAD! Once again, here we go. For quite some days, I rode on the “blissfully unaware" wagon. I took the approach of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind and decided I would “think about it tomorrow“! Unfortunately, we were getting down to the wire and it became important to think about it TODAY! After much back and forth and around and about all the scenarios, a couple of us decided to leave a day early to try to beat the storm. This whole part of the story also plays out in previous posts so I will not recount the details. All in all, the whole party arrived safely and with very little incident in London to enjoy a fun-filled ten days!

So, what I came to say is this, DOES God care about our enjoyment or not? Does it matter to Him if I actually go on a vacation that is pretty much “just for fun"? Yes, I now truly believe that He does. So go ahead and plan that trip with your family. Or that “girls only” vacation. I do not advocate selfishness but these things can be good for the soul. Do not delay. If, for some reason unknown to us earthly beings, He decides now is not that time, I believe that will be clear to you also.

John 16:24b Ask and you shall receive, that your joy may be full.

Psalm 16:11 KJV Thou wilt shew me the path of life: In thy presence is fulness of joy; At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore