Let Me Tell You About My Jesus

I’m going to share a story this week about how real Jesus is and how He is at work around us every day. If you keep your eyes open and “see” how events unfold, you will discover His handiwork in just about everything.

This past August Ben and I began planning a trip to Texas for the end of October into the beginning of November.

After we prayed and thought about it, we decided we better move up the dates because we knew my body was beginning to change and I was feeling the twinges of discomfort.

The first hurdle we had to overcome was rescheduling Ben’s work vacation. It ended up being no problem and we were able to start making plans. We wanted to travel off the beaten path, so we decided to take 4 days to travel to Texas. We planned to spend the first night in Cheaha State Park in Alabama, then drive over to Camden, AL and spend the night with Ben’s parents. Our next destination was a night in Vicksburg, MS. Finally, our plans were to arrive in Texas on the 4th night.

And then the Delta variant came rushing through the South.

Hannah woke up on a Sunday morning with a few symptoms, and by Monday of that week, we took her to get tested. I followed suit on that Wednesday and got tested on Thursday. We both tested positive. We both felt better by that Saturday, and then I ended up staying awake much of Saturday night because Zach ended up in an ATV accident and had to get stitches in the hospital. Of course, I couldn’t be there, but I stayed on the phone on and off all night getting reports.

My body apparently needed sleep to recover, and I began feeling poorly again. I ended up with a horrible migraine-like headache that lasted for three days. After that, I lost my sense of smell and taste.

On day 14 I decided to get re-tested to make sure I had this mess out of my body. While I no longer felt bad, I apparently still had the bug and tested positive. This was on a Monday and we were scheduled to leave two days later on a Wednesday when Ben got off of work.

We knew we would have to cancel our trip without a negative test.

We began praying for the Lord to help me to test negative.

Tuesday evening we went ahead and packed our van and our clothes with plans to leave as soon as Ben got off work on September 1st all the while praying we would get a negative test.

On Wednesday morning, I returned to the testing site and was retested. The nurse and I had already talked about my situation and I believe she was as excited as I was when she brought the good news of a negative test.

Ben and I set out on our adventure around 4:30 pm on September the 1st. We checked in to the Cheaha Lodge hotel around 8 pm. We decided to go to bed early so we could get up before sunrise, make coffee, and take pictures of sunrise.

Our hotel room was positioned just perfectly for the outside night lamp. When we turned out the lights, a brightness filled the room. Around the blackout curtains, we had an amazing “starlight” glow in our room–ALL Night Long!

Side Note: We are used to sleeping in a very dark room!

Needless to say, we didn’t do a whole lot of sleeping, but we did laugh about it several times. By the time 4:30 AM rolled around we decided to go ahead and get up and begin our day. We made coffee and were out the door in no time.

We finally found a spot to see the sunrise and take pictures. It was a glorious way to begin our trip with nature and sunrise. I’m always thankful for the beauty we see in nature.

We made our way back to our room, got dressed for the day, had breakfast, and spent more time investigating our area.

Afterwards, we drove on the sideroads and made our way to Hoover, AL and had lunch with our precious friend Diane.

Next, we traveled to Camden, AL, and spent the night visiting with family.

We enjoyed a lazy morning drinking coffee and talking with Ben’s mom and dad. Around 10 AM we packed up and traveled backroads to Laurel, MS. I am a fan of the show “Hometown” where Ben and Erin renovate old homes in their community. We did our research and decided to grab lunch on the patio outside of Pearl’s Diner. This restaurant features good ole southern cooking and I was able to find a meal to enjoy that met my health requirements and it was yummy! Double bonus!

After walking/driving around Laurel for a little while, we drove another 2 hours to Vicksburg, MS. We checked into our AirBnB overlooking the Mississippi River, and went investigating in the Historic District. Vicksburg has some fantastic artwork and architecture. I could have spent more time looking around, but we had a goal to see the sun set over the Mississippi River. Ben and I camped out in our van and on the side of a hill, while we watched the tugboats go about their business at the end of the day. Every few minutes we would snap a few pictures of the changes in the sky as the sun slowly made it’s descent for the evening. When we were positive we had captured all of the moments we wanted, we ordered our supper at a recommended restaurant and went back to our Airbnb to enoy our meal.

I’m going to end the story right here for this week.

But I want you to know that we were so blessed to get to travel together on such a lengthy trip. Because we set our own schedule and times to travel, my body was able to handle the trip with no problems. That alone was a HUGE blessing from Jesus!

So now . . . “Let Me Tell You About My Jesus”! He cares about us so much! He gave us the sweetest trip together before any of the pain began and before the ascites started growing. He made sure that Covid left my body so we could have this time together. He orchestrated all of the details and helped us line up people and homes for Hannah to stay in so we could have this get away together.

He knew what was coming down the road. He knew that if we had delayed the trip until October/November that more than likely, I wouldn’t be able to make that long of a trip. And He opened doors and provided!

That’s my Jesus!

Come back next week to find out all of the crazy events that redirected our entire planned trip in Texas. It’s definitely a WOW God moment!