Delayed.....delayed.....cancelled

Mary says....

First we should start off by praying for the people in Joplin, MO and MN that got hit by tornadoes. How devastating. Lord, that You would comfort them, be their strength and hope, help them to rebuild buildings and lives. Thank you for the people that will be/are going there to provide fresh manpower and shoulders to cry on. In Jesus' name. Amen
May we all see that life is but a vapor. Where will we go after our vapor disappears is the question we need to ponder. I know where I'm going, do you? I've never been through anything like that, I can't imagine the sorrow that they are feeling. But my God knows them intimately and can embrace them with His fullness of love.

Now onto the title info....
We had a lovely Sunday morning with our children and extended family, was blessed to visit their church then said our goodbyes directly following the service in order to get to the airport which was an hour away. I tried really hard not to cry in front of the kids. It was difficult. And didn't last long after I got in the car. ;)
My 16 yr old son hugged me (ok I made him but it still counts) and his arms did NOT fall off contrary to what he believes. To see them get in the van without me was tough. This is not a simple weekend away where I could happily watch my children leave knowing that I would be with them again in two days. This was much harder. Now I have a taste of how my husband feels when he goes away for work. I tried to let them all know how much I loved them in the few seconds when I hugged them or waved. I hope that Tom and I have showed them enough how much we completely love them. 

The first leg of our multi flight trip to our daughters' country was supposed to leave at 5:49pm yesterday. I say supposed to because it obviously didn't. It got delayed for hours because of weather at OHare in Chicago. then finally around 10pm, it was officially cancelled. So, we had to rebook all of our flights and found a hotel with a shuttle bus. It was all pretty upsetting. So many ups and downs as it was going to go, but late, then later, then maybe later, then not at all. It worked out though because we would not have wanted to fly through the bad weather in Chicago. That is what Pastor Joel would call an interruption. We very much tried to view it as that during the process and asked God, "what is it that we're supposed to be learning or doing with this interruption?" Of course we prayed, but God was keeping us away from where we were going for a reason. We fully realized that later. :) Better late than never.

So we went to the hotel which turned out to be really nice and less expensive than we originally thought. Score! We've had a good breakfast, coffee, and Lord willing will be leaving in one hour and get to our final destination tomorrow afternoon.

One more thing.....this is for Stephanie, our gate ticket worker (not sure of correct job description),
Be Nice to Your ticket counter workers.  She was there when we got there 3 hours before our flight was supposed to leave (and was still there when we left) and had to deal with telling the whole lobby of passengers multiple times that the flight was delayed and re-booking for HOURS. She had some pretty rude people, but she handled it all well. I understand frustration and often exhibit it, but really people control yourselves. There is a difference between being assertive to get what you need, and being downright rude.

Hello to the kids......Mama and Daddy love you!   Hello and thank you to anyone else who ventures this way. God bless you.