Today I'm very grateful, in particular for encountering someone who spent all day helping me, probably far beyond "the call of duty".

I've been poring through travel brochures and websites for the past couple of weeks trying to put our fall trip together (another gift from Gary). We've tried several different tours, all of which required several days of waiting for confirmation and none of which worked out (tours were cancelled, no seats left, or the dates for back-to-back tours wouldn't match up).

Meanwhile, our travel agent is away for 2 weeks, her replacement is away for part of this week, and then we're busy with various things for awhile. So it has been frustrating trying to get something finalized before we get tangled up in our own hectic schedule.

Yesterday I was thinking that maybe I should give up because maybe Someone knew something I didn't (two years ago, the same thing happened, so we didn't book anything - that was the year Gary got sick, and he was hospitalized and died right at the time we would have been away). So yesterday morning, I prayed for guidance. Three things happened: Romans 8:11 (All things work together for good for those who love God); then I kept hearing "Italy, try Italy" (not one of our choices thus far). So I dug around the itineraries, found one that matched up with the second tour we want, then emailed the tour company directly and asked for help.

Well, the woman on the other end of that email has been amazing! We've been emailing back and forth all day, me with questions and dates, she responding with answers and dates. We finally found a match-up that I really liked. She knew that those seats would probably be snatched up by Wednesday so she went ahead and put an "exceptional hold" on them for us. There's still no 100% guarantee that we'll get them, but I'm so flabbergasted, touched and grateful for this amazing woman, her patience with me throughout the day and her tireless efforts to help me put something together.

The third thing that happened was that during our nap this afternoon, I dreamt about a very dear priest friend of mine I haven't seen in about 20 years, though we've kept up to date with each other through a mutual friend. When I woke up, I remembered that he's studying in Rome for a few years! It turns out that with this particular itinerary we'll be spending several days in Rome so should be able to meet up with him.

I have the giddy feeling that Someone is helping to orchestrate this in the loveliest way...working out everything to good indeed!