About a month ago I put on Facebook that I would love to go to the Star Wars Weekend in Disney World, mainly because I knew the kids would soooooooo enjoy it, but I also knew we would all have so much fun! I thought it was impossible and it was just another day dream, but somebody commented on the status and said 'Why don't you go in Half Term?'. This set me thinking, and thinking and thinking - a bit like Pooh Bear 'Think, think, think'. I started to think, why don't we go in Half Term, is that even possible? So I say to Steve 'Wouldn't it be amazing if we could find a really cheap deal and go to the Star Wars Weekend during Half Term - but it would have to be really cheap which I don't expect is possible!' There it was, I had thrown down the gauntlet to Father God, Steve and to myself, was this possible?! For the next few days there was an awful lot of internet searching and investigating, I didn't really hold up a lot of hope as it is half term and when I was saying cheap, I was meaning really cheap (in Disney terms anyhow). We found out about a budget airline (Monarch for those interested) and we started to put in dates and see what came out. Half Term was, as you would expect, very expensive but amazingly the week either side of it was half the price and possibly affordable. More research was done, more figures calculated, more day dreaming! Before I knew it Steve had produced a spreadsheet with how much it would cost to the penny. There was quite a large deficit between what was saved and what we needed, but I started to look through the budget spreadsheet and pull together money from all the little corners we have, and low and behold, we had the money! We couldn't quite believe it, we checked our figures a few times, we checked the prices with the airline quite a few times to make sure there weren't any hidden costs we didn't know about and then we came to the conclusion, we could go!!!!
Sadly then we started to have a crisis of confidence - just because we can afford to go, should we spend all this money on one week! This is a slightly mad and frivolous idea - we could do so much else with that money. I have to admit I felt embarrassed that we might go and spend lots of money on another holiday having only just been to Rome and what would people think! But then I started to remember my dream of being able to take the kids to the Star Wars Weekend, and of being able to go to Disney World many times and knew how excited the kids would be and I wanted to be able to give them this amazing gift of going for one mad week to do something that they will remember for ever! I began to get an inkling of what the Father must feel when he gives great gifts, we couldn't wait to see the kids faces when we told them, that not only were we going to Disney for the best weekend ever, but we were going in two weeks time!! As I thought about the joy that this was going to give us, I began to realise how much joy it must be giving the Father to be able to give this gift to us as a family. I could feel his smile and love shining down on us so we hit the 'Book it' button!
I have to say we had the best fun ever!!!! It was such a blessed week and despite coming back completely shattered, it was definitely the right decision. Making memories with your kids is so important, full filling their dreams is so amazing and letting God flood your life with blessings and full filling your own dreams, however frivolous they may seem, is fantastic. So looking in from the outside it must have seemed like madness to go for one week, but from our perspective it was the hugest blessing from our Father, heaped on us with all his love and a fullfillment of dreams, because,as they say in Disney, dreams really do come true!
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