Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Turtle, poop, toe-nails, bras and blessings: PART II



After our torturous, disastrous,  special girl's outing, we headed to dinner at the River City Grill in Surfside. Mom picked the restaurant out, and I must say, I was rather shocked. This place wasn't anything I would chose for the Queen of Etiquette's 60th Birthday. The restaurant resembled a beach  house on the outside, and on the inside were several floors of dining rooms. The windows were open, with large fans circulating air, and wherever you looked, drawings, etches and signatures graffiti'd the place. We had about a 45 minute wait for our table, so after we snapped some sweet pictures at the beach, we just stood baking in the sun. I was dripping sweat, and had to restrain myself from pitching a tantrum when I realized there was no air conditioning in the restaurant. I'm ashamed to admit that once I discovered our son was sitting in the spot closest to the fan, I made him switch with me. 

Dinner was.. eh. It was okay food, but I couldn't get over the peanut shells, and blowing napkins on the floor. And I'm not trying to be a snob, but the table was really sticky. I just didn't appreciate the "guest can autograph anything" feature the place offered. Again, if you knew my mom, you'd still be scratching your head as to why she enjoyed this joint so much. After we ate, we headed back to the excursion aka "The Beast" and discovered the battery was dead. Mr. Man is normally prepared with jumper cables, and a battery charger, but had emptied out the trunk to make room for vacation stuff. We began asking people who walked by if they had jumper cables, but we couldn't find anyone who did. It was unbelievable. I even asked a couple of good ole' boys with pick up trucks and nothing. We were quite a ways from the nearest auto part store and it was nearing 9 o'clock. The boys were beginning to sweat, and hanging out the windows of the beast asking us when we were going to leave. We paused, and prayed. 

It's funny how when we have a problem, we always try to fix it ourselves first, and then pray. We can usually save a lot of time by praying first, and trusting the Lord to take care of us. Kieran prayed that God would send someone to help us. Mom and I decided to go ask a local hotel if they had jumper cables that we could borrow. We walked into the hotel in and explained our situation to the manager. She talked to the sweet maintenance man and told him she had cables, and asked if he would give us a jump. We weren't guests, in fact, we were no one as far as they were concerned, but they were so kind in helping us. 



Finally our beast had power again, and we were up and running! I thanked the man profusely telling him how Kieran had prayed that God would send someone to help us. He said, "You say your little boy asked God to help?" "Yes," I answered him. He told me to go look in the rear window of his truck. He said, "I've noticed a lot of people have started putting their initials on their vehicles. What are those letters? Those mean nothing. I decided to put something on my truck that means something."
 
 I suppressed tears, told him "God bless" and we left. As we got back into the beast, I told Mom what had happened, and we both cried. How great is the Father's love for us? Mom said it was the best birthday ever. Despite our embarrassing walking on the beach, painful pedicures, and interesting shopping experience, the Lord's glory prevailed over the day. I thank God for His many blessings, and the little ways He shows His love for us. 
Love XoXo,
Suzzy