Cruise Timeline

This is an amazing story and one of the reasons how I know that God likes it when we have a great time! Our view of God and how we see God is one of the most important things ever. Some people see God as Holy and perfect but they also see Him as a big fuddy duddy…A God that doesn’t want us to laugh and have fun with family and friends. God mandated good times and rest- so check this story out.

Your Mom, your Uncle Scott and myself were planning this big family trip to Hawaii with Uncle Jim and Grandma and Grandpa. The trip would consist of two parts. First part, a cruise of all the Hawaiian Islands and the second part was a week on the Big Island where we would see Uncle Scott’s house he was building and we would look for a little land ourselves. We surprised Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Jim and they were ecstatic. All was good. We purchased the flights and cruise for later in the year. Everything was set- I would often times pray that this trip would Glorify God and I would tell Him….I don’t know how our vacation would glorify you, but God that is my prayer. God honored my prayer but at first, it did not seem like it. Every single week there is an inter-island Hawaiian cruise with a launch date and a return date a week later. Every cruise was one week. So we chose a date that would work within our ideal time. And this was hard to do because we were so busy with work and everything else. As it turns out, some time later, the very cruise and very week that we chose was closing down. The week after and the week before was ok, in fact any other date for the next two years was ok. The one week we chose was not ok. They were closing the ship down for maintenance and painting. WOW, what a bummer. The only other date was way earlier in late February into early march. We had previously booked for later in October but the only other time that would work was way earlier in February. so we booked it.

now as it turns out Grandpa passed in November of 2019. it happened so quick but we know he loved being with his family as he walked into eternity. Grandpa still wanted everyone to go on vacation in February and we did keep the cruise and the booked date in February. This timing gets really crazy as Covid-19 hits the scene. As I type this experience, I am thinking of a “future you girls” reading these words. Covid-19 rocked the world and I’m sure, Celia, you will remember wearing masks everywhere and doing virtual school. I am not sure if you, Natalia will remember these days or not as you are 3 and 4 years old at this time of Covid. Anyway, on the day we were flying home from a fantastic vacation, this was the first time I heard the term “Covid-19”. We flew back and everyone was talking about. As it turns out the whole world shut down right after we got back in Chicago. ALL cruise liners were cancelled, in fact, the very cruise directly after us (we literally watched them board the ship as we left) was cut of mid cruise and one cruise liner held captive all the folks on board for weeks. All flights shut down. All travel shut down. All restaurants shut down. no going into work. stores selling out of all meat and all sanitizer. people hoarding all types of stuff.

Often times, God does something awesome, answers prayer and performs miracles for us and we don’t realize at that time what God as done. Just like my “dentist experience”. Just like the apostles realizing all the things Jesus has said after He was crucified and raised. This was just like that. After the cruise and during quarantine from the covid-19 pandemic, I realized that if the cruise line did not schedule maintenance the very week we originally booked…the very week…..our trip would not have happened at all. And when we rescheduled the whole trip, if we would have booked it even one week later, the whole trip would have been called off. The thought blows my mind away- and if we didn’t get to go, would it have killed us? nope. But I know that God had honored prayers that our vacation would glorify Him. God enjoys us having a great time. So even in this story, I want to tell you what God did and in this story I want to glorify God.