Funny Now, But Not Then

Have you ever had an experience in your life that you can look back on and laugh, but at the time it wasn’t that funny?  If not, then I guess we have something uncommon between us.  It seems like I find myself in situations like this everywhere I turn.  Here are a couple…

When Paige I got married we decided to fly down to Cancun, Mexico for our honeymoon.  We talked about this trip for months and planned for everything (so we thought).  Upon arriving at Sky Harbor Airport we quickly found out at around 4 am in the morning that a passport was actually needed to fly down to Cancun.  Paige came prepared and brought her passport just in case, but I left mine in Illinois because I heard from my friends that I shouldn’t need it to travel to Mexico.  Well, it turns out that after 911 some things changed and I was about to find that out the hard way.  As my new bride stood next to me crying I begin to try and figure out how to fix the situation so I wouldn’t have to sleep on the couch for the first two years of our marriage.  Luckily, I was able to find someone up early, willing to break into our house and fax us a copy of my passport.  Sadly, we still had to find a notary that was willing to get to the Phoenix airport at 4:30 in the morning.  Not sure how, but someone raced through Arizona highways avoiding cops from the far east valley to notarize my copied passport.  We eventually made it to the gate with just a few minutes to spare. Funny now, but not then.

Fortunately, I have never forgotten my passport on any trip since the story above and I’m not sure I ever will.  BUT that doesn’t mean that another passport situation didn’t happen less than 5 years later.  Upon our recent trip to Puebla, Mexico Paige and I both had to renew our passports (Paige because of her name change and mine because it expired.  Before we left to the airport we made sure we both had our passports, I even took mine out and wrote down the passport number on a paper to leave at home in case we lost them during our trip and Paige followed my example.  After getting to the airport we quickly realized that Paige had left hers on the table at home (after writing down the passport number).  Once again we were lucky enough to have adequate time before our flight and Paige’s mom brought it to the airport. Funny now, but not then.

So needless to say if you ever travel with me out of the country I might ask you 12 times if you brought your passport.  I might even ask you to show it to me.

If you are wondering what this has to do with missions or what point I’m trying to make through this post… Ummm… hmmm…  I’m not really sure.  I guess I would say try to not be SO serious all the time and be willing to look back at your life and laugh.  Be flexible, laugh lots, and trust God through it all.  Oh and don’t forget your passport when traveling outside the country.

Have you ever had a moment that is funny now, but not then?  If so I would love to hear about it.

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