A Wonderful Gift!

Surprise!

I wasn't supposed to go down the shore this weekend.  In fact, I was pretty adamant about NOT going down the shore since my husband would be away and I had made other plans to take Vincent into Philly to see my side of the family (I haven't seen my brother in a while).

Well, my mother-in-law persuaded me to head down to Ocean City with the carrot of my wonderful little cousin, Lydia.  She currently lives in Colorado but was here for a stint in the summer.  Since I didn't get to see her much (and she'd be leaving this weekend) I cancelled Philly plans and made my way down to OC.

God had QUITE the weekend planned for me.  I feel so foolish now for trying so hard to do things my way.  Upon arriving in Ocean City, Vincent woke up and leapt into his Pop's arms after barely making it out of the car.  He was up for another half hour or so, just buzzing happily with his Mi-mom and Pop.  The next morning, when I checked my mail, I got a message from a friend I hadn't seen in eleven (11!) years.  She, too, had come in from Kansas to spend some time in OC.  She wanted to meet up!  I practically bounced around the living room!

The weather was beyond gorgeous and the water was so warm.  Vincent had an absolute blast playing with Lydia and Alliya.  The waves were his favorite, I think, now that he understands he's able to sorta "ride" them to the shore. 

So my friend and I made plans that fell through a couple times.  Finally, in our frustration, we threw out an SOS that we could possibly just go to the same Mass the next day.  So I chalked it up to God setting us up for something, and sure enough, He was!  I made the trek over to Our Lady of Good Councel (which, BTW, is GORGEOUS) in the hopes that we would find one another after Mass.  We did!  And we were able to chat for a good 15 minutes or so. 

Plus - the homily MORE than made up for the cantor / lector (I'll have a blog on them soon!).  What a wonderful bonus to an already wonderful surprise!

Ahhhh - God is so good.  Just wanted to share a little lesson I learned this weekend.  Sometimes you've just gotta hand over the reigns and realize you can't control every aspect of your life out, especially when God is specifically asking you to enjoy the backseat for a while.  :)

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