Ticket Takers



Em helping me at work, by modeling
T-shirts for sale at the Family Life table.

 Wednesday, Emily and I had some alone time at Kingdom Bound.  Scott was working in the morning and his mom had Ashley.  Meanwhile, Emily stayed with me the night before (getting up at 4:30am) and spent the morning with me at the Family Life tent.  After the show, we rested for a bit, then had a great lunch with some co-workers.  We were kind of fizzled out from the week's festivities, but decided to head into Darien Lake anyway.  Rides seemed a little overwhelming, so we settled on a few games of Skee Ball.

Skee Ball is one of my guilty pleasures.  I'm not very good at it, but boy, when you hit 100 once or twice, it just get so exciting.  So Emily and I are racking up points and watching the tickets pour of the machines.  She eyes her prize...a 250 point Webkinz figurine, with a bonus code to use online.  I like it.  Not your typical theme park junk. 

After a few rounds, we don't have enough tickets.  So, we head to another arcade, and play a game of "Deal or No Deal."  On our first game, we scored 78 tickets!  Still, about 20 ticket short, we head back to the first Skee Ball booth.

We put in our quarters, and nothing.  It's pretty hot by now, and I'm kinda feeling tired and gross.  But one of the things that frustrates me about Christian festivals is how sometimes Christians don't act the way they should, so I go to the guy running the booth and ask him to check it out.  He is skeptical, I see.  He comes over to look at our machines and Emily is now getting a little anxious.  I start talking to her softly, explaining that sometimes it's the process of getting something we desire that teaches us more that the final outcoming.

A couple minutes of tinkering, and out come our first rack of balls.  We being to play.  The points are not very high...and the tickets are just not coming.  I look at the machine next to me, which the attendant also just serviced.  It has a string of tickets hanging out of it.  The impuse immediately is "TAKE THEM!"  And then the Holy Spirit steps in. 

Ask and it will be given to you. -Matthew 7:7

I yell over to the attendant, "Did you leave these tickets for us?"  I see his smile.  "Yep, you can have them."  Sweet!  We finish up the round, count our loot in the ticket machine and head to the prize counter.  There are about 20 different Webkinz figurines and Emily is slow to decide.  We talk it through, very sweetly, me never rushing her.  She finally decided on a blue hippo, wearing overalls, holding a paint can and brush.

After all the calculating, Emily has 9 tickets left.  She glances down at the case and looks behind her, where a little boy and his dad are counting tickets, and contemplating options.  "They can have my extra tickets," she says.

Without any prompting or prodding, she passes on the blessing.  I am beaming.  Not so much because I had anything to do with her behavior, but for how excited I am that God uses the Holy Spirit to always be with us.  A gentle reminder, a firm reprimand, we only need to be open to hear the Lord's leading.