Adage #11: Stop for the surprises in your life.

My dad, sister and I had just spent the whole day traveling from Los Angeles to London. I think we arrived at our hotel around 7PM. We unloaded our stuff, grabbed some dinner and started wandering around. We stumbled upon a nice looking town square with some fountains and decided to sit and do some people watching.

We sat down on the edge of a fountain and looked up to see a tall statue of a man with four lions at the base. It was then that my dad realized that we were in Trafalgar Square, a place he looked for every time he was in London, but hadn’t been able to find.

It’s funny how often we end up stumbling upon things on accident. Places we could never find when we were looking for them. While driving around Spokane, I often stumble upon interesting places that I can never find again when I’m purposely looking for them. I can never seem to find the particular article of clothing I am shopping for, but when I go without a purpose, I find tons of stuff. When I am looking for God to do something specific in my life, He does something I wasn’t planning on.

So when you find unexpected things, take a minute and pause there. Enjoy it because who knows when you will find again!

Adage #10: The best part of traveling to Europe is the Kinder Eggs.

Seriously, that's not a joke. These might just be my favorite part of going to Europe and I have managed to find them every time I've gone over there. They are hollow, egg-shaped chocolates (milk chocolate on the outside and white chocolate on the inside) that have a little toy on the inside.

The anticipation of what toy you are going to get beats any Happy Meal toy ever. Maybe it's because things are just better when they are not allowed in the US (I think it's because little kids can choke on the toy found inside). Maybe it's because you have to hunt around for a while before you can find them (they're everywhere in the winter, but a lot harder to track down the rest of the year). On this trip, I couldn't find them until half way through at a random little shop in the countryside of Bavaria.

So if you find yourself in Europe, make sure you buy a Kinder Sorpresa, Kinder Surprise, or Kinder Überraschung.

Adage #9: Make sure to leave your glass slipper on the stairs before you leave the party.

I have loved the story of Cinderella since I was a little girl. It is the only movie I can tolerate watching over and over and over. I will watch any version of it I can get my hands on, no matter how cheesy it might be. So when my sister, my dad and I talked about what we would go see while on our trip to Europe this May, I only had one request: to see the “Cinderella Castle” (Neuschwanstein) outside of Munich. This castle inspired Walt Disney and it did not disappoint, the place looked like it was straight from a fairy-tale.

The castle was built by “Mad King Ludwig.” He built some gorgeous castles - these castles he dreamt up were not your run of the mill. They are everything you think of when you think fairy tales and princes and Disney movies. But Ludwig never finished Neuschwanstein Castle and never got the chance to begin construction on his next castle project because he was arrested for being an unfit king.

Ludwig was too caught up on building his magical castles to care about running Bavaria, . His whole story is very interesting and his death is shrouded in mystery (check out the links above for more info). As my sister and I were taking in all this information while on a tour of two of his castles, it occurred to me that Ludwig got so caught up in the magic of other people’s stories that he never lived his own. He built a castle based on Versailles because he wanted his own version and Neuschwanstein was based on the music of Wagner. He had the power to do incredible things as the king of Bavaria, but instead he chose to build castles and ignore what was happening in his kingdom.

I love stories: telling stories, hearing other people’s stories, and watching stories unfold on TV shows, in movies and in books. The life of King Ludwig reminds us that we can’t get caught so much in the fantasy of other people's stories that we forget how to live our own out. You are in the middle of an incredible story. You might be in the part where the characters are being introduced, maybe you’re building up to the big battle or maybe you’ve just won a huge victory. But you’re story coincides with The Story, the one God started in the Garden of Eden and ends with eternity (which is more of a beginning than an ending).

What are you doing right now to live out your own story?



Suggested reading:
A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller
To Be Told by Dan Allender