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The power of prayer…

'Suitcases' photo (c) 2011, Michael Coghlan - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/


However we really have outgrown the little cottage and on top of that our teenage daughter has found it a bit dull so the last 3 years we’ve said we should do something else, and then  booked it anyway. So this year we said right, that’s it, and aside from that the teenager had point blank refused to go again. So being that the last 10 years our summer holiday has cost us next to nothing, we had not a clue about how much real holidays cost and so we soon discovered our best option was to wait until July and bag a last minute bargain. As anyone who has ever tried to do this will know, you have to be flexible. We on the other hand have a family of 5, specific dates, needed a pool and a tiny budget. Flexible we were not. By last week we had tried every single last minute holiday website, resorted to finding a gite or something and similar and then tried every single cottage/gite website. We rang, we emailed, we went into the travel agents – some of whom laughed us out of the shop for being so foolish trying to find a holiday for 5, on a tiny budget with 2 weeks to go… it was not looking good…

So we prayed. and when I say we prayed, we really prayed. Every website we looked at we asked for God’s guidance. We worshipped and prayed. We asked God to show us which travel agents to go to. We asked for a miracle. Nothing. Really, nothing. But weirdly we both had a sense of peace about it all and we both had total faith that God had something in store for us. So a week ago we sat down again and prayed. We just gave the whole thing over to God, we had nowhere else to look, we decided that if nothing came up we would use the budget and go on some fantastic days out in this country. So we said to God, that if he really did have something in store for us, as we believed, we needed to know by Saturday – 6 days until we would be due to travel. 
Saturday approached and nothing came up, but we still had faith. I even went out and bought a bikini in faith! Saturday morning  went out for a run and I just said right God, I believe in you, I believe you have something for us but I do not wish to spend yet another evening trawling the internet for a last minute cancellation. If you are going to give us something I want to know by 8pm tonight and if not then at least we can relax and have a nice evening and plan some fun stuff in the UK.
So we had given God this:
we need a cottage/villa or gite
with 3 bedrooms – stipulated by the teenager she had to have her own room
either within driving distance of home, (in which case we need a space on eurotunnel too)
or flyable within our budget (of which so far there was nothing even approaching…)
there had to be a pool and some other kids activities, like games room/play area etc
we had to go on specific dates
We need to know by saturday, 8pm
with a week’s notice!

So as you can see we may have been a teensy bit demanding…
Saturday afternoon I sat down to the computer for one last time. It was futile but I thought, I have to play my part in this, if God is going to show us something, I have to open my eyes. So for an hour I trawled through the same websites I had looked at many times already. I found 3 properties that said they were available (although so far in our search this had meant the owner just hadn’t updated their availability). First one came back booked. Second one it turns out I had already emailed but hadn’t realised (there were a lot of emails…) booked also. Then the third one, was…. available!!
Not only that but it was withing driving distance, it has a pool, it has table tennis, a kids area, a bar (bonus!), and as there had been a cancellation it was reduced in price too.
Very quickly we checked Eurotunnel and yes, there was a place at exactly the right time…
so we booked it all at lightening quick speed. My husband said, oh look at that it’s just £2.50 under our budget (ha!) and I looked at the clock and it was 2 minutes to 8pm…
Woohoo!! Thank You Jesus 🙂 What an amazing answer to prayer.  So we’re just wondering now if God has a specific reason for us going there. Maybe it will turn out to be a mission trip all of it’s own…
And if you think it’s all just coincidence I challenge you to find a holiday abroad for 5, with a week’s notice for under £1000…

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2 Comments

  • Reply
    Jules
    August 5, 2013 at 3:13 pm

    sorry about the weird link thing in the text, I can't remove it any way I try, just ignore it…!

  • Reply
    Funke
    August 5, 2013 at 7:26 pm

    Wonderful answer to prayer! God is always faithful 🙂 Enjoy your holiday xx

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