The Odds are Good, but the Goods are Odd.

I finally went on a vacation!  My family and I spent a week and a half cruising the Pacific Northwest, drinking in God’s beauty in Seattle, Juneau, Skagway, Ketchikan, and Victoria B.C.

Two days into my trip one of my best friends died.

I agonized over the decision of whether to continue on my trip or find a way to go home for her service.  See, Cyndi and her husband, Scott, were supposed to come with us on this trip before the cancer made that impossible.  I think a part of me always knew she’d go Home while I was gone.  I almost didn’t even go, but I knew she’d be so mad at me for that, so I went.  And I stayed.  And I took the pictures she and I talked about before I went, nearly a thousand of them.

Her memorial service was that Tuesday.  I was in Skagway, Alaska.  Shortly after we docked, I went out on deck, and I saw this:

It was such a beautiful reminder of God’s faithfulness, even in the midst of my heartache.  God is still God.  He still has authority over everything.  Though He could have chosen to spare Cyndi’s life here on earth, He chose, instead, to grant her eternity with Him.  Now she gets to experience beauty even greater than this:

In another post, I’ll write more about the awesome things I saw and did on my vacation (One word: LUMBERJACKS!), but for now, here’s another taste of my trip:

P.S. As I write this post, I’m mourning the loss of another friend, Mark, who went Home this morning.  Mark was one of my first web design clients and a dear friend to both me and Scott and Cyndi.  Cancer sucks.  God is still good.

P.P.S. The title from this post comes from a saying they have in Alaska.  See, there’s so many more men than women there, that there are a lot of single men.  But because so much of Alaska is so remote, sometimes the guys are a little…different.  Cyndi and I laughed before the trip that I was going to come back with a mountain man boyfriend.  My experience?  The odds were good, but the Goods were odd. :o)