Just got back from a family vacation. As is often the case in our family it turned out to be another "Rudolph Family Adventure." We ended up having to replace the transmission and put on four new tires.
In the interim, we rented a car and went to Disneyland as planned, then we took the girls to the ocean and played on the beach. the weather was beautiful, a balmy seventy degrees, sun shining and perfect. So we had fun, even though the financial strain was hard to reconcile.
But on top of car trouble, most of us got sick, and so the last few days I was mostly just wishing we could go home. I was feeling so good before we left, better in fact than I have felt for some time. To get sick was highly discouraging to me. Aren't vacations supposed to help you feel better?
The irony is that I had told God before we left, that this vacation was in His hands. I was hoping that by doing that, we could avoid a disaster this time, but apparently God thinks we need to deal with this sort of stuff when we go on vacation.
I do have faith that He was watching over us. After all, the transmission got us to Victorville, where Jeff was delivering his sculpture, before it quit. It could have stranded us in the Mohave dessert or the Las Vegas strip, so things may have been much worse. But is it too much to ask that just once the Rudolph's could have a vacation that didn't break the bank and leave us more worn down than we were when we left? Some days I feel like God is mean.
It's been almost a week and I'm still recovering . . .