Good day/Bad day

You know how you have those days when nothing seems to work out as you want it to? Scotty and I had one of those days yesterday, for the most part. Going to the market here is usually an exhausting process of driving, looking for parking, lots of walking, searching for one little thing you need in a sea of products (think several Walmarts spread out over dirty, crowded streets full of cars with absolutely no order in where things are), and sometimes never finidng what you need. Well, we decided to make it a market day- realizing that this could possibly be most of what we get done. On the way, we tried to meet up with a guy who is working on some paperwork issues for us to hand over our ID card. After getting bad directions from him and driving around for 20 mins, we finally found the place to meet and he informed us he was with someone else and would be down "right away"...sometimes that means within the half hour, usually not right away. So, as we waited for him in the car, we realized we had forgotten what we needed to turn in to him. In the process, it is nearing lunchtime, I'm hungry, and we haven't even started the shopping spree yet. We finally make it to the market, search high and low for various articles, and find a few others we "needed" that we didn't realize we needed, and then headed to our favorite Cuban restaurant for a late lunch. The rest of the day was full of little frustrations and a few tense interactions between Scotty and me, which always got worked through, but it make for a tiring, long day. Then, everything changed late in the evening. We had set a date to go to a neighbor's house who owns a piece of property we were very interested in buying to talk price and make a deal. He had gone up from what he initially offered us but after much prayer and seeking the wisdom of good friends who have also bought land here, we had come to an agreement between ourselves of what we wanted to offer him. When we got to his house, he started talking about how he'd spoken with his daughter, who has the land in her name, and she felt like the price he had given us was too low. Both of our hearts sunk and as he rambled on, we both prayed fervently for God's grace and guidance in our interactions. We had a long, drawn-out conversation, mostly about things completely unrelated to the property (as he has a tendency to tell stories) and finally came straight out with our price we wanted to pay and our inability to pay any more than that. He seemed relieved to know exactly what we were thinking and almost immediately agreed to accept that price, without counter-offering! God was surely at work here! We left his house with a bag full of lemons and oranges from other land he owns, and happy to have not only a new piece of land (God-willing, after the paperwork goes through), but a new friend too! Then, from the time we left the house this morning, things we weren't even thinking about just started falling into place, the right people to help kept appearing, and the most exciting event of all- the internet company came to our house (unexpectedly) and installed high speed internet in 10 minutes!! I am sitting in my guest bedroom, looking at our present and future land, and writing a blog! I can't explain quite how good this feels. So, we rejoice in the challenges, knowing that God is refining our character and asking us to lean on Him and be patient through the strength His Spirit gives, and we rejoice in the good days, when we know He is being abundantly gracious in making things easier than they have to be.