Something that I have been learning a lot about in the past 4 months on the race is God's favor for me, His daughter. This is something that I've always thought of as an abstract, unpersonal thing, but it is very quickly becoming my reality…and I really like it a lot!
God has showed me His favor time and time again, but today I want to tell you all about our trip to Italy!!
My group while in Italy consisted of myself and five other girls. This meant that, for the first time on the race, I was going to get intense girl time for two straight days!! I love girl time, and I just don't get enough of it on the race, because my team, that I wouldn't trade for the world, has two men. Sometimes they try, but they're not very good at girl time.
So we got off of the ferry and stopped at the information desk to try and figure out where our hotel was…turns out it was in the next town over. So while waiting for the hotel shuttle to come and get us we got to spend 45 minutes making new friends. They were great fun, and they bought us all an espresso at the coffee bar upstairs!! Our day went on and things just fell into place for us, our hotel was incredible, we found the most incredible place to eat lunch, we got to explore Giovinazzo and Mulfetta, Italy, we made friends, had incredible pizza, laughed a ton, had great conversation, found english speakers at all of the most essential times, I found a ring that I love, and we went into every Cathedral that we could find!
On a side note, can I just tell you that there is something so incredible about standing in a building that was built specifically to bring God glory, and has been filled with people worshipping Him for hundreds of years!!! Loved it!!
Back to His favor…when I laid my head on my pillow on Saturday night I was so overwhelmed with all of the favor that God had shown us. It was such a great day, and God was so good to us! And then Sunday happened…
We woke up Sunday and I went to take a shower. After standing under the hot water for about three minutes I heard a spraying sound, my water pressure disappeared, and it got really cold! I found that the hose on the shower head had a whole that had been repaired, but the repair didn't hold. When I finished my shower I opened the shower door to find that there was water dripping from the ceiling and the there was a puddle of water about and inch and a half deep, covering the entire bathroom floor. I flooded the bathroom!!
After that the day continued on and God definitley showed us great favor, but we also had some things that didn't quite go our way. It was just a totally different day for me, and I didn't really understand how the two days could be so drastically different. They were like night and day from one another! It was crazy! And I started to feel sorry for myself and be a little dumb about everything, but then something so wonderful came to mind!
Earth to Savannah!!! On the days that God shows me His great favor, He is good. On the days that God doesn't show me as much favor, He is good. And on the days when I can't even dream of His favor because I feel like it is nowhere to be found, He is still good. God is good, all the time.
This is a lesson that I have learned many times, but it is also a lesson that I have to learn over and over again. It's always easier to remember this on the days when everything is right, but it's not always easy on the difficult days. Yesterday God taught me to be grateful and know that He is good, even though things didn't really go my way…again.
So being in Italy was incredible for so many reasons, the culture, the food, the people, hanging out and havin girl time, and so many other things; but even more importantly than all of those wonderful things I was reminded of His consistent goodness! And now I have a great story about flooding a bathroom in Italy that I will be able to share and laugh at for years to come!
