Theater Tickets

My daughters and I always set aside the second Saturday of December.
That is our mother-daughter day.
Stopping the world and the busyness before Christmas just to be together.
We look forward to it every year.

We have gone to New York and taken a carriage ride around Central Park.
We have seen The Nutcracker ballet performed.
We have spent the evening at Longwood Gardens and been enthralled by the lights.
This year we planned to see the Broadway musical, ELF.

Tickets were purchased way in advance and we had wonderful orchestra seats.
We were looking forward to going out to lunch in the city before the play.
We were anxious to walk to the theater and see the Christmas displays as we went along.
We were ready to get dressed up and be together.

Then the weather intervened.
Snow was in the forecast for all along the East Coast.
Our area was to get 6-8 inches of snow followed by sleet and freezing rain.
Decisions had to be made.

Should we chance it and wait until Saturday morning to see what the weather was like?
That option would guarantee that we lost our tickets entirely.
Should we try to switch our tickets to another day hoping seats were still available?
I called the theater ticket line and inquired.

Yes, we could still switch tickets up to 24 hours in advance.
No, there are not many seats left and only one night that had four tickets together.
No, there is no price adjustment if the new tickets varied in price.
Yes, there is an additional $82.00 charge for switching tickets.

I checked the weather, the radar maps, every forecast I could imagine.
After much debate, I chose to switch our tickets to the week after Christmas.

The week after Christmas, a weeknight show with four tickets together.
Our wonderful orchestra seats became mezzanine seats.
Four tickets together in the center of the theater were now four tickets on the side.
We do not have time to have dinner first since we have to drive in rush hour traffic.

Plans change.
Even the best laid plans are not written in stone.
Things happen that we don’t expect and we must adjust accordingly.
Not always easy or pleasant to do, though.

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins. (James 4:13-17)

We think our plans are set.
We have everything mapped out.
We know where we will be in the next minute, the next hour, the next day.
Or do we?

God has veto power over our plans.

Imagine the exquisite beauty of one snowflake.
If many of those snowflakes fall at one time, a city comes to a complete standstill.
One snowflake is a thing of beauty.
Many snowflakes can stop traffic!

Imagine the solid plans we make.
The smallest change to even one detail has a domino effect on the others.
Our plans become a house of cards.
One small interference can topple the whole structure.

Annoying to be sure.
Frustrating to say the least.
Humbling, helping us not to think better of ourselves than we ought.

God is sovereign over our plans.
God is in control even when our plans seem ruined for all intents and purposes.
God’s plans are always best, even if they don’t seem so at the time.

We woke up the morning that we were supposed to go to the play and there was no snow.
There was no snow during our scheduled lunch.
There was no snow during the musical’s overture.
There was no snow during intermission.

I had made a wrong decision, or so I thought.
I had made an additional $82.00 decision.
I had made a decision that moved the second Saturday to the fifth Monday.
Snow finally came when the play would have ended and when we would be driving home.

The operative word was “I”.
It is not about “I” or “my”.
It is about HIM.
Always Him.

How do I know what we might have been protected from that day?
How do I know that the fifth Monday might actually be better in unexpected ways?
How do I know?

I don’t know.
That’s why I have to trust Him.
God does know what is best and why.
The beauty is that we don’t have to know all the answers in order to trust.

We just trust.
We wait in expectation.
We believe that what He is doing will bring Him the most glory.

It’s not easy.
It’s beyond our understanding.
It is best!
Really.