Earlier this year I wrote about some hotel rooms and the various features or lack of features therein.
Today I'm writing about a hotel room again but from a completely different viewpoint.
Last month I wrote about various animals and the thoughts I had from our experiences with them and today I'm talking about another animal.
So what is this strange connection between a hotel room and an animal?
In the early part of February this year my husband Fred was away travelling with work and I had an appointment first thing in the morning in Belfast during a time of snowy weather so my son Daniel came down to Banbridge from Belfast and drove me up in the early evening the night before.
I could have driven up myself but I'm not a keen driver in any amount of snow after an incident many years ago when the children were young, and Daniel wanted to "take care of me" with his dad being away.
I had gone on the internet the day before and found a hotel which offered a good price and was near my appointment location even though I had never stayed there before.
So having arrived at the hotel and been greeted by a very pleasant girl on reception we booked a table in their restaurant to have a meal and headed up to leave my bag in the room.
That's when we saw the elephant in the bathroom.
In this day and age what is the first thing any of us do now when we see anything funny, interesting or just different from the norm?
Yes we take a picture!
So out comes the mobile phone and I'm snapping away with Daniel laughing and saying to me
"I bet that will make it's way into your blog sometime"
Now at this point I want to include for the record that I was not the only one who had their mobile phone out clicking away at pictures!!! Right Daniel!
And he doesn't even write a blog.
Okay so let's get back to today's animal.
Here it is
Isn't it cute?
Well you can guess what I thought about after taking a few pictures.
Yes - "I wonder how they did that?"
and so then began another round of pictures as I took the elephant apart bit by bit to see how it had been made.
Then can you guess what I thought about after that?
The well known phrase
"The Elephant in the Room"
referring to something that is there, that is not being spoken about, but everyone is conscious of that overhanging situation.
Well that could have fitted in with my situation that evening.
It could even have been thought that there was an "Elephant in the room" all the time for the previous 2 months as I had waited for this appointment to take place.
The appointment was at the Breast Clinic.
I was in that band of women who, having been checked out by their doctor, are referred to the clinic as not immediate (to be seen within two weeks) but should be seen within 6-8 weeks.
So basically the doctor is rather concerned but not sure that there is definitely something wrong there.
It had been at the start of December that I had seen the doctor and that meant I had to wait through Christmas and the New Year.
Fred & I have always been of the mindset that we pray about every situation and then try to leave it with God knowing that He knows best so that is what we did but that doesn't mean we didn't think about it often. and we did continue to pray about it during the time of waiting.
Our biggest concern was not to worry the kids (all grown up now with one 30 mins away from us and the other two living in two different countries) because that is what parents do; they try to protect their kids from things that may hurt them in any way.
However things did not go as planned and to cut a long story short I did end up telling one of the kids and then the other two had to be told as well.
So that was how I ended up being "taken care of" by my son on my appointment at the hospital.
Now God knows in advance what we are going to need.
And God plans in advance how He will meet that need.
Because
God takes care of us.
God takes care of us.
If I had not told the kids then Daniel would not have known that there was an opportunity to help his mum.
If Daniel had not come to drive me to Belfast I would have had to drive myself and I would have dreaded that in the snowy weather.
If Daniel had not been with me the night before I would have been alone in Belfast and that would not have been as pleasant as an evening chatting and joking with my son over a lovely meal.
If Daniel had not been with me the morning of the appointment then I would have felt very lonely sitting on my own waiting in the hospital for the scan and mammogram and then the results.
If Daniel had not been with me after the appointment who would I have had to be thankful with that it was not cancer?
God had planned it all.
He planned that I would tell the kids because He had planned how He would show me His love and care for me through them.
There is no doubt about it.
God loves us.
God can meet our needs.
God wants to take care of us.
Are you facing a problem? Do you have an "Elephant in the room"?
Talk to God about it and give it over to Him.
