Had I not just written and experienced Sanctifying Stress last week I may not have found this week as comical as I did. The past few days brought on enough stressful occurrences to wreck havoc on Girls Camp, but God in his goodness is in all the details even when they don’t make sense to us.
I had mentioned in the said post about the Girls Camp that my daughter and I do with another mother and daughter. Well, my sweet friend returned late Sunday night from a family vacation to a myriad of disappointments. Her new pool liner that was supposed to have been in two months ago had still not arrived. And on top of that her deck had been stained the wrong color, the house still not finished being painted… and the painter’s equipment was over-taking the barn that we needed to transform in to a Fairy Princess haven.
Thankfully my boss had excused me from having to work at my part-time job on Monday so I was able to help with Girls Camp set-up. But the overwhelming question remained…
Can we even have Girls Camp in 100 degree temperature without the pool?
Late on that day before Girls Camp was scheduled to start, my friend’s Pool Guy informed her that the lining was not actually overnighted as thought and therefore would not arrive until Wednesday. That is Day 2 of Girls Camp!
Fortunately Pool Guy agreed to rent us an inflatable water slide for those two days, a different one for each day, and assured us the pool would be ready for Thursday. We were still a little nervous though as to how this would be received by the campers and their moms. Did we need to cancel? Refund some money?
But as it turns out, what 5 to 7 year old girl doesn’t LOVE a 17 foot water slide?
(Our Day 1 slide)
It was a HUGE hit. So without missing a beat Girls Camp went on.
(Don’t they make darling little mermaids?!)
When Wednesday arrived my friend was waiting anxiously for Pool Guy to call and when he did she learned that the pool liner was on a truck in Arkansas that was at a standstill stop due to a wreck on the highway! Ugh! Really?
Finally at 2pm she heard the liner had arrived and Pool Guy was on his way… only he didn’t arrive until evening because now his wife’s car broke down. Ugh! Really?
That night she is texting me the play by play and as Wednesday’s sunlight gave way to the moon, the liner was still not installed in to the pool. Turns out Pool Guy needed the sun to help stretch it in to place. So at nearly 10pm we learn there will be NO POOL for the final day of Girls Camp. The day the girls had expected to finally swim!
So we kept the water slide and the girls still had fun.
In fact, our Session II girls, who come later in the summer, I’m afraid are going to be a little bummed that they won’t have this awesome water slide.
So though this was not what we had planned and it was frustrating that for over two months my friend had communicated that the pool must be done by Girls Camp, we had to rest knowing that God sovereignly rules over all things…even all these mishaps that led to no swimming.
While we will never know if this prevented an accident from happening or was simply God wanting us to turn our anxious hearts over to him, I do know that His grace was everywhere. Everyone took it in stride. The girls had fun. The camp was a success. And our spirits remained calm when they could’ve been overtaken by the unexpected and unwanted circumstances.
On top of that if you recall, I mentioned in that earlier post I had to work at 5am Wednesday doing merchandise inventory. I did, and even got out early and made it to camp on time. And my shift for tomorrow was covered by another employee so now I can prepare my own kids to leave for their Kamp!
Again and again, God takes care of the details! I guess you could say THAT is the silver lining… He never fails, even when we fail to trust that He is good and see Him moving behind the scenes!
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