I’ve been taking my kids to Disney World since my first born was four months old. Crazy? A little. Only other “Disney Families” will understand the draw. You either love it or you don’t. We love it. However… it’s not always a magical experience.
Last February, while Saul was up to his eyeballs in basketball, the kids and I hopped a flight to Florida to meet Saul’s parents and my mom. It was a train wreck from the word Go.
Ben was sick with a cold/fever for the first half of the trip. Just as the preschooler started to rebound, the sickness made its way to me. Suddenly, I was less than enthusiastic about traipsing through the Magic Kingdom looking for a mouse. All I wanted to find was my bed.
I started to feel better on our last day and honestly considered extending our vacation, but my husband told me it was time to come home. Apparently he misses us when we’re gone and thinks the kids should attend school like other children. Neither he nor I knew what was waiting for us once we got back to Ohio. The kids went to school for 1 day and then had the next 4 days off because of an ice storm. Not funny, God. Not funny.
I wanted a do-over, and seriously, when will I ever have better leverage to demand a do-over than after a breast cancer battle? I hatched the plan in August, spent a week in September convincing Saul it was a good idea, waited until Christmas Day to tell the kids, then packed until January 14th when it was time to get on the plane.
We jokingly call it the Goodbye Breast Cancer World Tour. (Is it still considered a World Tour if you only make stops in Orlando and Cleveland?) It was meant to be a celebration and it was. 
However… uh oh. There’s that word again. About a week before we left, I started thinking I might be crazy. I was going to Disney alone with 3 kids. No husband and no grandparents for back-up. Ben came down with an ear infection and my tissue expander was really causing me pain in the left side of my chest. What was I getting myself into?
It would have been too heartbreaking to cancel, so instead I called in my prayer warriors.
Oh my gosh, you guys, I get weepy just thinking of it. There are people dying and abused and living in extreme poverty and here I am asking my friends to pray over my trip to Disney World. And they did it! And they didn’t even roll their eyes! Those are some good friends.
It worked. I swear to you, I could feel their prayers. It was like we were put into a little bubble of protection the entire week. Now, let’s not get crazy, things weren’t perfect, but our perception of things was perfect. When it rained, we put on ponchos and galloped our way down Main Street U.S.A.
I understood every moment of every day that I was being given a gift. Watching my kids and laughing with them and having conversations about God’s goodness… it was all so precious.
So, today, I just feel compelled to remind you that God does indeed hear you and he cares about the details of your life. He can bring joy to desperate situations. I know, I’ve seen it happen. But he also loves to meet us in the mundane, the maybe-not-so-important, the there-are-bigger-problems-out-there times and make those moments magical, too.
