Somewhere Between Purgatory and My Great Expectations

What do you get when you cross a 33 -weeks-pregnant-mother-of-8 with a not-what-you-envisioned vacation rental?

A place somewhere between Purgatory and the Land of Great Expectations.

That's where I spent the last week. The exact location is irrelevant, though it was in the beautiful state of CO. My vacation experience, like everything, was a matter of the heart.

So excited to plan our first family vacation in over five years, I didn't consider those pictures of the rental might not be the most accurate or up to date. And who wants to rein in the visions of luxury and relaxation when you just know you've found the perfect place for your family of 10 to stay? (That's a feat in and of itself. Did you know some renters don't like children? Or at least not more than 2?)

But visions are dangerous. I don't just mean the, "God came to me and told me to do such-and-such...". I mean most visions of something we've yet to experience.  Either we'll imagine things way worse than will ever be and have wasted time worrying, OR we'll create a perfect adventure in our heads that only leaves us disappointed. Rarely will our visions be like Baby Bear's porridge, just right.

My vision did include at least three of the things a woman wants when she stays somewhere. A clean refrigerator. A clean bed. A clean bathroom. And if that woman is pregnant, the desire for those things is amplified a few thousand times.

Our vacation rental had almost 1 out of three, and the clean fridge and clean bed weren't it. I have pictures of the messy, cob-web infested garage that greeted us, the dirty comforter and sheets and pillowcases in the master bedroom (think blood stain and body or dog hairs with a bit of baby spit-up thrown in, too), the neglected crumbs and stains in the fridge, and other tell-tale signs that screamed, "You missed me when you thought you were cleaning!"

And somehow the pictures on the web didn't show a house right next door, within spitting distance, or the fact that the river was blocked by houses across the way. And oh, the description didn't mention the swing set was partially  broken and the bike tires were flat and there might be trash and dog poop in the yard, too.

Not only was my blood pressure up, so was the temperature in that house. How could I forget to make sure there was air-conditioning? 77 degrees downstairs and 82 up. Anyone who's been around a pregnant woman knows her body reads those numbers as 90 and 100.

This is how I ended up crying in a McDonald's parking lot that first night as we served up fine cuisine to our children after driving the almost 50 miles back to a Wal-Mart to find a clean pillow and pillowcases. Yes, I know you might have just washed those nasty ones and been done, but I just couldn't. That might have been way too rational.

To top it all off, my sin nature tagged along, reminding me that God had exceeded my baseline for adversity and enough was enough. After all, the week before we left we had to deal with Ink's getting pneumonia, a costly computer problem, a new crack in the car windshield, a refrigerator disaster, and the basic stress of packing up a family of 10 for vacation. My sin nature was a stubborn companion, and it was only by God's grace that she finally shut up and didn't convince me to infect everyone else with my murmurings and misery.

Because while I was seeing all the above, the dirt, the broken things, my dashed expectations, our children were seeing a lovely walk to the river, the first family vacation most can remember, the swing and slide that weren't broken, the first family vacation most can remember, the table big enough to seat all of us, the first family vacation most can remember, and other blessings. 


God was using them and their laughter and smiles and contentment to teach me this, even though they didn't know it:

When we are mature, we are able to make careful, rational comparisons between today's hardships and tomorrow's promises. As we do this, we see not that the scales will balance or that we will come out a little to the good. Instead, that sober comparison ends with a childlike fit of the giggles as we see the overflowing abundance of the grace promised to us."
~R.C. Sproul, Jr.

I had visions of vacation bliss, but God had plans for heart surgery. His knife work was more important than my nap time. His work included the reminder that we can take a break from many things, but battling our sinful hearts isn't one of them. His purging was a reminder that He never rests from making us more like Christ. What great love is this!

So perhaps it's more accurate to say that when you cross a 33-weeks-pregnant- mama-of-8 with her unmet expectations AND toss in God's lovingly used pruning knife, you land most perfectly in the Land of Grace. In the Land of Sanctification. In the place where He never ceases to make us more like Jesus.

With love,
Trisha