Vacation Miracle! and the winner of your hero picture selection!

Hi everyone!  Sorry no news today. I just flew back into town and haven't had time, but for those of you who look forward to my Mad Friday report, it will be back next week. ( not if the rapture occurs, of course) 

Hence, without further adieu, let me present to you the winner of my Hero picture selection survey last week!

Yeah, enuff said. Is it hot in here? LOL.  But thank you all for your votes!  There were some awesome choices, weren't there? Oh, my.  If you didn't get a chance to see them all, click here to go to Pinterest

Vacation miracle!

Last week I flew to Tennessee to visit my Mom and my Sister. For my Mom's 85th Birthday, we drove down to Panama City Beach and spent three nights there. It was my Mom's birthday request. I'll post a few pictures below. The beach was gorgeous! I've never seen sand like this before... it was like white baby powder! And I got to swim in the water for the first time in years. (The ocean here in Northern California is freezing)  I swam out to a sand bar where I could stand up! It was awesome.

On our way driving back to Tenn, we were making our way through Atlanta and this horrible screeching sound starting coming from our car. It was horrible! I was driving and in the commuter lane and slowly made my way across the traffic (it was rush hour) to the next exit, thinking all along that the car was going to blow up or something!  I got off the exit and made a right into a mini mart parking lot. My sister and I popped the hood and stood there staring at the engine with no idea what to do. LOL Then we checked underneath the car and nothing seemed out of order. When we tried to start the car and go again, the same screeching (I mean, it was loud!) sound happened. My sister got on the phone to AAA, but they were going to take 4 hours to get to us. It was 2:30 so that meant we'd be sitting there in the hot humidity for 4 hours, only to be towed to a station that would be closed and then have to get a cab to a hotel for the night. Mind you, my mother would not do well in a hotel.  In fact, none of us can really sleep in the same room. Then we would have had to wait for the car to be repaired the next day before we could drive the remaining 5 hours home. That would have been my last day there before flying out. In other words, it would have been miserable and very upsetting, especially to my Mom.

So, I'm standing there praying and staring at the car when this man comes up, a complete stranger, and asks me if we are having car trouble and could he take a look. He's a mechanic. I say "Yes!" . He determines that our break pads dropped off, and that he would fix them if he had the tools... but right across the street is a Jiffy Lube that would do it for under $200. He explains to me exactly what to say to them so we won't get ripped off.  I thank him profusely and we head over there with much noise and prayer. This Jiffy Lube was not busy and had the nicest people working there I've ever met. They got our car right in and we were able to wait in an air-conditioned room with my Mom. I even went and got her a smoothie at the store next door!  They finished the car in under an hour and never tried to rip us off. The man who fixed it waved as we headed out and said "God Bless you".  We were then able to get home before dark.

Now, why do I say this was a miracle? Because if the break pads hadn't fallen off at that exact place on the freeway and I wasn't able to slowly get off at that particular exit where this nice man was at that mini-mart at that exact moment and saw us, and was able then to help us and tell us to go to that Jiffy Lube (Which I would have never done cause I didn't know they fixed cars), which wasn't busy and full of Christians who fixed our car right away.... well, then we would have had a miserable night and following day. Too many coincidences for me not to realize that God's hands were all over that event!  Too many things had to line up for us to get that car fixed and get back on the road. Even my husband said it was a miracle.  You can bet I was praising God all the way home!!  

I'm telling you this because this is how much our Father loves us and watches over us!!  You must believe that. You are never out of His sight!  Things don't always work out perfectly like this, but you are never alone and He has a plan to help you! I want you to always remember that!

Me and my Mom

My Sister and my Mom on a catamaran we went on

The View from our balcony!

That's me out there!

This cool storm came up!

Me and my Mom sitting on that gorgeous sand!

I always find a pirate on my vacations

He let me sit on his lap. Actually he forced me. See the pistol?

Have a great weekend!!!