Last night I was tossing and turning with the dream (nightmare?) that I was packing for a solo trip with my three girls and kept forgetting things and having to go back and pack more. The packing never ended, I never made it to the destination part of my dream. Dang.

This dream was basically two real life travel experiences mashed into one. We go to the beach in California almost every year. In fact, we were supposed to be taking our kids to the beach and Disneyland next week. I know many others have it way worse than simply missing a trip right now, but I was really looking forward to celebrating our 15th anniversary as a family, eating churros, riding rides... Maybe we’ll make the churros and dole whip at home and watch the rides on YouTube. A close second.

Back to the dream and the real life experiences. A couple years ago as we were driving off to the airport for a trip to the beach, someone forgot something so we turned around. By the third time we were pulling away, waving goodbye to our neighbors who happened to be chatting in the driveway (and laughing hysterically with/at us), that was it, there would no coming back for anything, we would buy it if we needed it. And then I realized… my drivers license wasn’t in my bag. Seriously?! As we turned around wondering where in the world it could be, Gary remembered Lucy had been playing with my bag. Turns out she had spilled some things under my seat and there it was. Crisis averted, we made it to our destination.

The traveling solo with three kids part happened in real life on another beach trip. Gary got severe food poisoning while away on business (Chinese buffet, just don’t). After three days of not turning a corner, looking like death, and with our flight the next morning, I finally convinced him in the middle of the night to go to the ER. He got fluids and meds, and as the morning crept closer we decided I would leave him at the hospital and continue with the scheduled flight and he would meet us in a couple days.

Enter overwhelm. I didn’t want to leave my husband at the hospital in his time of need, I wanted to be there to take care of him. Plus I needed him to help navigate airports with the girls and all our stuff.

When I got home and woke the girls, I explained the situation. As we sat in the hallway, I became completely overcome with feelings of gratitude.  A friend would bring Gary home from the hospital, we had travel insurance, we were taken care of. I told the girls I felt the need to say a prayer of thanks, so as we knelt in the hallway, I blubbered out a sincere prayer of gratitude and a plea for help getting to our destination.

All the way to the airport I was wondering how I was going to manage car seats, luggage, three kids, rental car, plus our seats were scattered around the plane so I had to sort that out. My girls were much too little to be out of sight between a bunch of strangers. As the shuttle pulled to the curb, we happened to be dropped off right in front of an abandoned luggage cart. I loaded it up with all our things, grateful I didn’t have to leave my girls waiting at the curb with our stuff while I went off to find one. We got to the gate and I headed for the agent. Before I could even blurt out my name and what I needed, she told me she already took care of it and we were all in the same row. Tears welled, I thanked her.

We arrived at LAX and headed towards baggage claim. As we walked towards the carousel, an employee with a luggage cart headed straight for us and offered help. He joyfully got our luggage, knew where the carseats would come out (pretty sure I never would have found it), loaded us up and navigated us to the curb. Just as we were crossing towards the shuttle pick up, the very shuttle we needed arrived in front of us. We didn’t even have to wait, it was there, we were there, we hopped on and picked up our car where we were upgraded to a minivan (yeah baby! they cost like twice as much!). A gas station was around the corner, we grabbed a few snacks and headed to the beach house. I updated Gary on our situation and told him I felt like I could do anything. Bring it.

To some, these events might seem like a mere coincidence. But to me, they were a clear sequence of events that served as a personal reminder that Heavenly Father is aware of me, loves me, and will help me if I turn to Him, and I trace it all back to that prayer in the hallway.