"I'm your huckleberry"

I’m a romantic. Or at least that’s what I’ve decided to call it, whatever the case, I believe in signs. Not that I find pictures of the Virgin Mary in my toast or anything-but there have been more than one occasion where I’ve felt like God’s down right spoken to me through seemingly nothing occurrences. Its those moments where you KNOW God hears all and knows all-and it gives you a warm fuzzy feeling just thinking about it.

Anyway, I’ve thought a little bit about the best way to tell this story-reminds me of this weekend, talking to Carmi and her explaining that she had moved the fact of me living in Texas at the time of my wedding to the END of a story to give dramatic affect.
Wrong way: “So my best friend in Texas wanted me to be in her wedding and I really wanted to be in it.”

Right way: “So my best friend invited me to be in her wedding and I really wanted to be in it…. My best friend lives in Texas.” ( just hear the people gasping)

See? Much better. Throw the surprise in at the end. Dramatic.
However, when you’re telling a story about how God heard your deepest silly little desires and gave them to you as small sign of His love and affection-the problem is, a lot of the time people don’t KNOW about your silly little desires.

So, here I go…ruining the dramatic affect of this story:

It was pretty early on in our marriage that Brett and I were talking about movies that we liked and we were reminded of the Western Delight that IS Tombstone. Val Kilmer shined as Doc Holiday, there have been very few really good walking shots ( besides that fire shot in Desperado) that can rival those do-gooder cowboys walking down the streets of Tombstone on the way to the be showdown with the local badguy…there is even a random house fire in the back ground…go figure, and there just is NO comparison to some of the lines ( who is that tall glass of water over there…eyes squinted against the sun?…. “Why Johnny, I forgot you were theeeey-rr. You may go.” “I’m your huckleberry” etc. etc. )…and so it was decided that we must watch this classic of classics as soon as possible.
Easy, right? It’s a classic. Every video store would have it.
Wrong. There was not a video rental in a 15 mile radius that had a copy of Tombstone…and as for buying it. Pretty much impossible. It wasn’t for lack of looking either, Oh, we looked…Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Target…random little DVD stores….nobody had a copy of Tombstone. It was a veritable desert out there.

Anyway, like I told you, on Thursday Brett and I made the seemingly rash decision to kick this popsicle stand and go to Portland for the weekend. Now, its not like there was that much “looking forward to” time-but in the long hours that were Friday it became more and more clear that it was possibly the best decision we had EVER. MADE. Turns out…until the Middle of December Brett and I do not have ONE DAY that is not planned. We do not have ONE DAY that is completely free to spend together doing whatever we want. Honestly, that thought alone would send anyone to Oregon….but the good reasons for our trip just seemed to pile up and by the time we’d headed out the door it was a no-brainer, this weekend away was a winner. However, it wasn’t the good reasons or the fact that Saturday was really gorgeous ( no rain, hardly any coldness) or the knowledge that we’d even get a whole extra hour of sleep on Saturday night, or how we came upon this gas station that sold old school candy on the drive to Portland ( side note: all good road trips need snacks. It’s a rule) or how once we got to Portland we somehow made it to Powell’s Bookstore ( the largest book store known to man) even though Google maps failed us by giving us a closed road as part of our directions, or how once we got to Powell’s they had three floors of book happiness for us to wander through….or how blessed we felt that we hardly blinked at paying for all those books we ended up NEEDING, and it wasn’t how we randomly found this little tiny Espresso, Chocolate Bar that fed us glorious dessert and it wasn’t even how we were “forced” to go to Whole Foods to validate our parking stub and therefore forced to buy wine and really cool wine glasses….no, it was none of these things that really told me that God was looking down from heaven and smiling at me and saying “I’m going to take care of things-and not only that…I’m going to make things work out for good… nope. It was the fact that once we’d had our near perfect day in Portland and we were settled into our lovely hotel and flipping through the channels on the television that we came to the credits of Men in Black followed with a voice over saying, “Up next Tombstone.”
Yes, it was that moment that really sent the message home. Even though tomorrow is going to probably be a long day-and the next day will probably be even longer, things are going to work out OK, because we got to watch Tombstone.