We have had mostly good experiences using VRBO the last few years with only a few unscheduled adventures, usually a gravel road just when traction becomes very important to drive straight up a mountain. My husband laughs at me because I want to stay in mountain cabins but want flat roads to get there, and he is right. One year, we lucked into a great price on a Tennessee cabin because the owner was selling. The cabin was actually called “God’s Gift.” The next year, I found a great price on a place in Charleston and thought it was cheap because part of the complex was under construction. It turned out that someone had cashed in their integrity and sold us their “free” time share weekend. After showing the hotel our receipt showing we had paid for our two nights through VRBO, they let us out of the very long presentation, and we took our first good look around the lobby. We wanted to stay in the historic district and we succeeded! The place was gorgeous and definitely nicer than we should have been able to afford. We were also the only people in the lobby with kids, and the only people dressed to hit the beach at a moment’s notice instead of a nice restaurant. Just in case the fact that we were not living the same kind of life as everyone else there wasn’t clear, our bell hop shifted our luggage on his cart and a bottle of Sunny D rolled out of a Walmart bag and onto the floor. Another bell hop across the room, very concerned, yelled out, “Sir, your Sunny D!” Everyone, at least 20 people, were now staring at us and our groceries. No one else was lugging in their own groceries. But one thing Jason and I have learned through traveling is that it takes a lot more energy to be mortified than to laugh. I still blushed in the moment, because I’m human, but then I laughed, because I’ve learned.

When have you been somewhere you didn’t fit in? How has God shown you that you are welcome in His family?

Ephesians 2:18-19 ESV
[18] For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. [19] So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.