Once we were within minutes from the hotel I texted my niece. After settling in next to their car I said we’re here! She then said come in. Their room was literally at the back door on the first level, how perfect.
It’s funny they had not been to many different places to eat. We discovered why. When we went to scout out where we should eat that evening said it all. Culvers was within walking distance of the hotel and a little girl discovered really good chicken pieces on the menu. As we went past my brother had it already as routine and turned on his turn signal to turn into Culvers for what I believe would have been their 4th time.
When we were getting out of the cars my nieces face was stoic. She wasn’t happy with the decision to eat at Cracker Barrel. Why? We don’t know… maybe she had a hunch!
Watching her for a while was so sad. She just had this look like we betrayed her by picking this spot. She ordered her favorites mac n cheese and french fries. It literally took me showing her some photos from Facebook to get her out of that stoic sad demeanor. Seeing her cousins in their pretty prom dresses took her out of her misery. Only then she took over my phone, which she had not done in a long time.
The entrees came out and we dug in, I don’t know when it happened maybe 10 to fifteen minutes but some excitement startled us. It seemed like I heard my niece scream and we all looked toward her puzzled. Remember she was eating mac n cheese when this happened. She had a tooth pop out of her mouth. My sister-in-law found the tooth and she thought it looked like half a tooth. I don’t know, but we didn’t see any blood and she didn’t feel pain.
Afterwards she did take smaller bites, but she seemed okay otherwise. She did say it felt different, losing a tooth would make the landscape of your mouth different. Hopefully the Tooth Fairy visited her later on that night.
Just to think though, Tuesday when my brother blurted out his plans I didn’t see any of this happening. We heard we weren’t going to see our girl and we couldn’t see past that, what seemed to be a brick wall. It would not have felt so crushing as it did from Tuesday to Friday if we had known this was possible then.
The Lord is gracious, even when we don’t deserve his mercy. This road trip did not end there. We took the interstate from Effingham to Terre Haute. I thought I had made it through this trip wonderfully. The funny thing is it was the road to mommy that made me a bit carsick on the way to dropping our girl off. The whole trip was fine until then. I had to literally hold my mouth for a minutes until we stopped at mommy’s. I was afraid to get out of the car to say hi to her sisters.
The funny car rides my family has been enduring have been comedic and therapeutic. The timing of some of our thrilling adventures were not planned. Most of it was in God’s specific timing.
Jewells of Thought 
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