Roman Holiday: Part 1

While I'm on vacation, I thought I'd take a break from Hebrews 11 to make some quick daily notes about my trip and about Rome.

Today was our first day here. It's 10:20 pm, so we've officially been awake for about 24 hours. Boom! We're hardcore. We left Washington, DC expecting everything to go smoothly and be amazing and epic...but Murphy's Law is real.

Murphy's Law: Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

1. Our plane arrives an hour early. This would be great if we could check in early, but we cannot. 
2. This was actually for the best b/c we spent that hour looking for my bag. 

• I've never had lost luggage, and so I was crazily dismayed. I said to Bianca: "whenever it takes a long time for my bag to come out, I imagine that it's going to come out all wrapped up in tape" and we laughed. 
3. No taped up bag came out. NO bag came out. We hit the customer service line. 
4. While we waiting in the CS line, and other flights' bags came and went on the baggage carousel, from a distance I saw something covered in white tape...and I knew. 

It sucks to have your bag explode. But torn up bag is better than no bag at all. So off we went. And we had an amazing day touring the Colosseum, making ourselves a little early dinner of wine/cheese/meat and just hanging out on the streets of Rome (all before it started raining 10 minutes ago). The trip started out like a bad omen, but it turned out amazing.

Really, the whole bag fiasco was hilarious. And we laughed it off. I'll buy a new bag before I go. And so I'll just have a new, better bag. Yay!

Cliche Romans thought of the day:

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. - Romans 8:28

Maybe it seems shallow to apply this to the crappy way our trip started out, but like I said in my previous post: nothing is out of scope. God cares about all the little things in my life. Nothing is haphazard or by chance. Nothing. Bad stuff happens. It happened this morning. Bad stuff may happen tomorrow. Bad stuff will definitely happen in my future. But that bad stuff works together will all the good stuff for the ultimate payoff (what that is...I have no idea).

Today's prayer: 

Lord, thank you for amazing opportunities. We know that you put these opportunities in our lives for all sorts of reasons: for personal enjoyment, for personal growth and development, and ultimately to bring You glory. Bless us to always have calm heads and to see every mishap for what it is: something that is working together with, and in, our amazing opportunity for our good.  Bless me to see your perfect will at work in imperfect situations. In Jesus name. Amen!