A Wonderful Change of Plans

This past Sunday (3 days ago) I sat down here at my computer to post a new blog. It was going to be titled “…If only in our dreams” and it was about how Julie and I were really wanting to be able to return to the States for the holidays to be with our families and friends. We had been planning the trip for several weeks and we had been so excited about seeing so many loved ones and all of the things we were going to be able to do in the States. Our plan was to fly into Jackson, Mississippi on 22 December and then rent a car to visit Julie’s family in Clinton. We would stay there through Christmas and then a few days later drive to Augusta, GA to visit my family for New Years. We would then drive back to Clinton to spend the last few days again with Julie’s family before flying back to Merida on 7 January. We would be back just in time for classes to begin again.
It was a wonderful plan. We were so excited about it, we just needed to wait until plane ticket prices went down a little bit. We kept checking the websites and they consistently stayed about the same and then skyrocketed to over $700 a piece as December approached. We had received some extra support for the month of November which made me think that maybe we were supposed to use it to go home for the holidays. Julie countered with the argument that we need to be responsible and just because we have a little money doesn’t mean that we need to spend it every month. I knew that she was right, but we both really wanted to see our families and friends. I prayed about it and then told Julie this past Sunday that my suggestion was that if we could manage to both go to the States and spend less than $500, we would go. If not, we would stay. My family offered to help us with some money as our Christmas present, which was very sweet of them, but it didn’t get us anywhere close to the $500 limit. We were quickly resigned to the idea that we were going to spend our first Christmas together in Mexico away from our families, but we knew that God would meet us in our loneliness for them and we would be happy here. God keeps His glorious promises and we are to bank on them!

So as I sat down to type up the blog about our situation. I thought the title was going to be somewhat clever and the rest of it a little sad, but hopeful. I got about 4 lines into it when a thought occurred to me…What if we flew into Atlanta, rather than Jackson, and then rented a car to get to Clinton? We could then return the car on our drive to Augusta and just fly out of Atlanta on 7 January! I quickly checked ticket prices to Atlanta and they were an inexpensive (relatively speaking, of course) $450. I got super excited and ran and told Julie about the prospect. She told me to go for it so I called my family and the Christmas money they were offering allowed us to be right at $500 for our traveling expenses! It was amazing. The emotional turnaround was wonderful.

I kept waiting for another problem to come up but things went smoothly. When I tried to buy the plane tickets online, there were only two left at that price and I got them. Thankfully, they are together. Our flight is direct to Atlanta from Merida which saves a lot of time and stress of changing planes. We are thrilled to be able to go home for the holidays!

We are so thankful to our Father for this wonderful gift. I love the way that He puts us in a position to simply trust Him when there is nothing that we can do to change things. I also love the way that He sometimes makes it so obvious that He is at work to bring about our joy, even in little things. I know that we would have found our joy in Him no matter where we were and we would have honored Him by doing so. But still He granted us our desire for the Christmas holidays and we can rejoice in Him even more.

Thank you, Lord, for your precious promises. We love you.