God’s Fun Blessings

God is a God of infinite things, because…well, He’s GOD! One of those infinite things is fun. He cares about fun, and He takes great joy in seeing moments of pure elation on His kid’s faces. Like when we’re on roller coasters, for example! (Minus the moments of terror…haha.)

A little backstory here. We home school our girls. When our oldest daughter, now 9 years old, “graduated” from Kindergarten, I took her to Carowinds for a Mommy/Daughter date. Just us. We had a blast! We were given tickets that someone had won on a radio station that they couldn’t use. We gladly got the good out of those things!

Our middle daughter, who’s 6, just graduated from Kindergarten. I wanted to take her to Carowinds as well, just like I did with our oldest student as a gift of fun and time for their hard work. I gave her a couple of different options if she wanted to do something different, but of course she wanted to be just like her big sister. These one-on-one dates are so sweetly important. Especially when you have multiple kids!

I started looking at our calendar for dates and ticket prices and all that jazz. It’s no secret that Carowinds tickets aren’t cheap. I picked a couple of dates for potential times I could take her, but something kept holding me back from purchasing tickets.

I heard the Lord say He wanted me ask Him for the tickets versus just buying them. I started praying for them and asking Him to provide them. I had no leads or any idea where they’d come from…no “radio station” drawings coming up or anything of the like.

I saw a post that a non-profit called Hopematch posted on Facebook. We have known the founders of Hopematch for almost 18 years now! They are very dear friends to us. We have served on the board before and have helped with operations. (Hopematch is an incredible organization for the Charlotte area! Look them up sometime.) Anyways, the post was for a drawing for SIX Carowinds tickets: To enter, I had to post “Back to School” pictures of our kids! I posted the picture of them at our first day back to our weekly co-op. I thought to myself: “Ok, God! Thank you–this is perfect. This must be how You’re going to provide the tickets you told me ask for! Yay!”

The day of the drawing, I watched the video of the founder draw the name from the pile. She looked at the paper and read a name other than my own. I was happy for the family! But I felt back to square one with what God had asked me to do. I was so close to just purchasing the tickets, because the park was about to close for the season and we were running out of time.

Isn’t that often how life works? When we walk with the Lord and hear His voice (withOUT a shadow of a doubt!) and things still don’t seem to be working out in the natural–it’s so easy to get frustrated and think: “WHAT GIVES, God?! You do see the timing on this, right?” Well, I got a text not even two days after this drawing from my dear friend, the founder of Hopematch, that said something like this:

“Hey! So the Carowinds tickets drawing. The family who won said they felt they needed to give these up to someone else. I did another drawing and it was your name!”

I was astounded and immediately humbled for my doubt. I mean, God only is the Creator of the INFINITE universe and all that is in it, including heaven…did I not think He could handle silly tickets to an amusement park? (We were also able to borrow a friend’s seasons pass and got free parking!) I think my heart knew it would all shake out, but getting my head to cooperate with my heart was another ‘nother. Anyone else relate?

So, my two take-aways from this amazing testimony of God’s faithfulness are these:

1) Make myself available to hear the Holy Spirit’s “still small voice” on a second-by-second basis in my day. Be sensitive to His words and His thoughts towards me and mine. Make sure that I am hearing Him correctly and clearly. He’s always speaking!

2) Have some faith, woman! 🙂

My little girl and I had an INCREDIBLE day at Carowinds! We were there for nearly 8 glorious hours. Our conversations about people and life and everything else in between were perfect. (And yes, there were SIX tickets total: We were able to pass the blessing on to one of my sisters and her little family and a couple of friends as well! The blessing kept pouring over–isn’t that just like God?)

Naturally, we spent most of the day in Camp Snoopy, because…height on a 6-year-old. Haha! She wanted desperately to ride the “big roller coasters”, but I explained it’s just not time yet. She’s got to grow! That was an awesome segue way into all kinds of revelations we talked about with growing up and how God makes our time on earth perfectly timed to heaven’s watch.

Also, people watching. Always a pleasure of mine. I can’t write a blog post about going to an amusement park and not talk about the amazingly stellar people watching opportunities! There were so many incredible sights…it’s truly hard to whittle it down. My favorite was The Wedgie Picker. I mean like, truly one. You know how you stand in line for what seems like a short eternity for certain rides, and I guess wedgies can also get impatient. There was one individual who was fighting that thing for the duration of the time we stood in line together. She’d shake a leg, full-on yank it out, and even try the less obvious by pretending to shift side to side. For a good 30 minutes this went on. That was one stubborn wedgie, I tell ya! Not long after this, we were standing in line with another family. A very Southern-accented family. Someone in the nearby proximity had gas, and it wasn’t me. Wasn’t my daughter, either. (I asked). But GOOD-NESS. Whatever they ate could’ve given Pompeii a run for it’s money! Finally, this family’s little boy who just couldn’t take it any longer {in the most awesome Southern-accent ever} yelled: “Mama!!! I smell POOT. Somebody pooted! You smell that POOT?” Haha!!!

Back to the basics. Let’s quickly get off that rabbit trail! So, God is a God of fun. He delights in our delight. He desires for one of the many aspects of our life to enjoy good fun, and sometimes–like in this case–to trust Him for it. Listen to that still small voice and be patient! I am so very grateful for the family who originally donated these tickets to Hopematch and for the family who listened to God in passing on the blessing. Let’s be like these families, too! Let’s listen and obey and that can sometimes mean passing on the fun!

“Mommy, can you PLEASE hurry with picture taking?!”

 

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