“The LORD directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. Though they stumble, they will never fall, for the LORD holds them by the hand.”

‭‭Psalms‬ ‭37:23-24‬ ‭NLT‬‬

So, I blogged about the concert at St. Giles, but yesterday was full of other adventures: a group lunch and spontaneous performance at a pub, shopping with a friend, a glass of wine at the oldest pub in Edinburgh…and then – well, it’s hard to explain what happened next. I guess the phrase is “comedy of errors.”

We decided to leave the pub and go find dinner – so we asked the bartender to call us a couple of cabs (there were 7 in our group). When one cab arrived, 3 of our group went in it while the rest of us walked around to the parking lot in back of the pub, thinking that the second cab was there. It wasn’t. So we went back to the front of the pub, and there was still no cab. We waited for a minute or two, as a car arrived with the tag “for hire” on it, we got in and told the driver we were going to The Scotsman downtown. 

As we were driving, I began to look for my pouch with my cash in it…couldn’t find it. Began to panic a bit, so I handed one of my bags to my friend Susan, while I looked in the other. Neither of us could find the pouch. At this point, I piped up and said I had to go back. So James told our driver that we needed to go back.  No reaction. So James said the same thing again. Still, no reaction. Finally, Susan authoritatively told the driver we had to go back. 

The driver then asked James if we had called an Uber (an app that connects riders with drivers, and since the drivers are not official taxis, costs less for the riders). James told him no, we had asked the bartender to call a taxi. Turns out that we had accidentally taken someone else’s Uber ride. Oops! 

We got back to the pub, and while James apologized and made good with the jilted uber riders, I ran into the pub to see if I could find my pouch. There was a lovely local gentleman sitting in the chair I had vacated when we left, and I asked him if he’d seen a pink satin pouch with flowers on it. He told me no, he’d just arrived. I explained that I had only left a few minutes before and had been sitting in that very chair. At which point, he began to look around a bit and noticed my pouch sitting beside his chair. He cheerfully handed it to me – all my cash was there, just as I’d left it! (Clear evidence, that God is good and He takes care of me!)

Susan asked the bartender to call us another cab, and we found our way to The Scotsman where we reunited with the others from our party (who had begun to worry!) and had a wonderful dinner. 

(I won’t go into details about our misadventure of trying to find a cab to get us home after dinner!)

These are the things that only happen when you’re traveling. Adventures are part of travel – no matter how carefully you plan, it is just a FACT that you will find yourself faced with the unexpected. Last night’s adventure, in my mind, is filed firmly under “all’s well that ends well!”

What a reminder that the good and the bad often go hand-in-hand in life. To miss out on some of the bad would probably mean missing out on a great deal of good, as well. 

So in this blog entry, I say: thank you, God, for holding my hand, for directing even my misadventures, and for the mix of good and bad that made this experience a delight!