Chicago--night 2

The kids rebelled and protested that they couldn't possibly sit through any more of Andrew Wommack.  I couldn't understand it, because the teaching is so inspired.  They said they were bored.  How could they be bored?  He's not a boring speaker.  Mike and I had some intense fellowship about whether or not to let them skip the meeting.  In the end, they were told they could stay in the hotel room but not turn on the tv.  I told them there were all kinds of evil channels out there that we didn't want them watching, and Sarah said, "Like Nickolodemon?"  Noah and I laughed and laughed about that one, but she was serious.  She didn't get the joke.  She really thought that was the name of the channel.

I was very disappointed that they missed such a great meeting that could have been a benefit to them.  After we got back to the room, everyone was hungry.  Sarah felt strongly about Chick-Fil-A, and Noah was equally passionate about pizza.  So Mike and the spoiled boy walked to Pizza Hut, and I drove the spoiled girl to Chick-Fil-A, where we witnessed another monetary miracle.

I ordered at the drive-thru, and the guy gave me the total.  Six dollars and some odd cents.  I didn't pay much attention, because I was paying with a credit card (or so I thought).  I was fumbling around for my purse, and it wasn't where it was supposed to be.  Then I remembered with a sinking feeling that it was in the hotel room.  You may recall from the American Girl ordeal that I had exactly zero cash left.  We started praying and scouring the van for money.  I was glad there were a few cars in front of me and the line wasn't moving very fast.   Sarah scrounged up 39 cents from Noah's wallet.  It was my turn at the window.

I told the guy I was very sorry but I wouldn't be able to take the food because I thought I had money but didn't.  He said with a smile, "Oh, that's ok.  Go ahead and take it."  This was a teenage drive-thru worker.  He didn't even need to ask a manager or anything.  Chick-Fil-A is one fine business.  I was still searching all the compartments of the van like crazy, and I discovered the coin purse I had packed for tolls.  I dumped it out and started counting.  I asked the guy for the total again.  He said, "Six dollars and 83 cents, but really..."  I said, "No, no, I'm going to pay it.  I think I have it."  I was up to six dollars, and he said that was close enough, so I just handed him the whole wad.  It was within a penny or two of what I owed.

hotel room gymnastics

Sarah was so sad when it was time to leave.  She cried and cried. 

Driving home, we pulled up to a toll booth.  Recall that I gave all my toll money to the Chick-Fil-A guy.  But I wasn't worried, because I knew Mike had cash.  It turns out he only had bills and the toll booth only accepted coins.  This time I had my purse, and it had enough coins in it for one toll booth.  Thankfully there was a human worker at the next toll, so we could pay in bills.  The sky on the way home reminded me of some of the teaching we had heard over the past three days.  In a nutshell, we learned that we have three parts to us: spirit, soul, and body.  When you get born again, your spirit is perfect, but you still have to live in your physical body and deal with your soul (emotions, personality, thoughts, etc.).  The key to victorious living is to be dominated by the spirit instead of letting the concerns of this world rule.  This was all fresh in my mind, so that fluffy white cloud rising out of the gray ones symbolized for me the spirit.