Musing on Goodness - April 25

I was due to leave Brazil on May 1. As the day grew closer, I started to pray about what the next step would be.

I’m a planner by nature. I like to have a basic itinerary or at least know what's going on. When I started this journey in October 2020, I had a very clear plan for this sabbatical - I was going to stay in the US until January, head to the UK in mid-January and stay there until the end of March. Then I was either going to head to South Korea for a month or head back to the US for six months and then return home to my sweet sweet Jamaica.

My plans became a classic case of Proverbs 16:1:

"We may make our plans, but God has the last word."

This fact became abundantly clear when I didn’t get my UK visa. It turns out that I was a little too young, single, unemployed and unattached to get in on my own merit.

So I told God, "I guess we're going to do this Your way and not mine… what's next?" As you know, He sent me to my younger sister in Brazil.

The time approached for this leg of the journey to end. I wasn't about to make the same mistake this time around, so I spent a few days praying specifically about what to do next.

Early one morning, I had a very clear notion intrude on my present train of thought. It went something like this: "You should stay with Micky for a bit longer."

My sister shared that she had been bemoaning how few days I had left. Because she had been sick, not only were we separated by isolation, but she had to work extra hours and overnight shifts all the days leading up to my departure. She also shared that the state will finally be reducing restrictions, so we would actually be able to venture outside. So I told her what I had been thinking.

On Wednesday we bought some expensive international minutes to call Delta Airlines and change the flight. Mid-process, our minutes ran out. So we bought double the amount and called back and got the same representative from the first call. We could just pick back up where we left off! Isn't that awesome?

Not!

The representative put me on hold and, as time ticked by, I realized that the second set of minutes would run out as well. So I hung up.

Delta needs to get a toll free number!

I started to get a little nervous. This flight change process was looking to be both complicated and wasteful. What if, on top of the money spent making the calls, the additional cost to change the flight was more than I budgeted for? What if I hadn’t heard from God, and this was His way of saying so?

We called back a third time and got a new representative (who I'm now in love with). I gave him all the details from my previous calls and he picked up from there. He worked as quickly and efficiently as possible to get me through. I could see the time running off and started getting nervous, so I told him about my timing constraints and he promised me that we were far enough along in the process that even if I got cut off, he would be able to complete the flight change and send me the updated ticket details. So I stayed on the phone for the final few seconds with my new Delta darling, just in case he needed more details.

The good news: he was able to move my flight to May 26th and I didn’t have to pay a fee for the change. In fact, I got some serious flight credits because of how much cheaper my new flight was.

So that’s my good news!

I’m staying for a longer time with my sweet sister and I have credits for the next leg of my journey, wherever that will be to.

So what good thing happened to you this week?