The day started off fine.  On my drive to the dermatologist in Olathe, I spoke to my granddaughter, Montana, who was boarding a plane with her sister-in-law, Julia, and Julia’s two children, a two-year old and a three-month old.  They would land in K.C. and get into their car they had left in the airport parking lot and drive to Ft. Scott.

At the doctor’s office, some skin cancer was removed, and my back was sewn up with several stitches.  There were a few errands to run in K.C., but I needed to be home for my late afternoon, Bible study, Zoom call.  About ten minutes north of Fort Scott, my phone rang.  It was Jenn, Mo’s mother, calling from somewhere in Alabama.  “Where are you?” she asked.  I said that I was on 69, headed home.

Silence…which in this case was not golden.

“Do you need something?” I asked.  She did.  Jenn had looked in her purse and, Surprise! Surprise! There were the keys to the car parked at the K.C. airport.  I told her that I could turn around and pick up my four relatives.  They were to land at 2:30. It was 2:15.                                Stopping in Louisburg to get gas and use the restroom, I managed to drop my credit card (you know, the one that pays all my bills automatically) into the toilet which, at record place, flushed on its own.  Then I hit rush-hour traffic while on the phone, calling to cancel my credit card.  (Yes, talking on the phone while driving.  Illegal and, in this case, unnecessary, since the odds were against anyone getting their hands on my flushed card to use it.)

At the airport, the traffic attendant told me that my gas lid was open and the cap was hanging outside my truck, meaning, I probably had lost quite a bit of fuel driving to the airport.  Mo called and she said that they were delayed because the airline had broken their stroller and she and Julia were trying to scan the Q.R. code—whatever that means—to submit a complaint.  Neither baby had napped the entire day (which did not change on the ride home) and the girls were “starving.”  It was then the deadening agent for my stitches began to wear off.  Not. Good.

I had mapped out my day to time everything perfectly, but “perfectly” in God’s timing can be very different than what I think.  My needs being met or someone else’s needs being met?  A minor inconvenience verses coming to another person’s aid?  Understanding that God continues to give me crazy stories to write about verses a boring, mundane life?

What I didn’t count on was how much of a hassle it is to lose a credit card.  I don’t know how much is too much, but this was close.  However, there were blessings.  When I called to say that I would not be on the Zoom call, others also had conflicts (but did not want to be the one to cancel), so we moved it to the next week.

My granddaughters and I had a wonderful conversation which we would not have had, had they remembered to bring the car key.  When I phoned the billing departments to change my credit card number, everyone got a good laugh from my toilet flushing story, and when I ended my calls with “Have a blessed day,” they told me to have the same.  I know, it’s not like I baptized someone or led them to the Lord, but it made me smile, and sometimes that’s as good as it gets.

Maybe that’s what God had in mind the entire time.