You know when the biggest decision of the day is… whether or not you should go to the beach first

or the bakery…your life is pretty good.

This place is charming.  My girls are smitten with the Italians.  Ok…I admit, I am too.  They know how to make you feel good.  Just put a big sticker on our heads that says, “SUCKERS FOR ITALIANS”!

Stephen and his new best friend, Marco, dropped off the rental car yesterday.  Marco has been such a great help.  He co-owns the Casa San Matteo (our new home in my dreams).  He is one of those people you meet that makes a trip, a place, and a vacation more special.  He has gone above and beyond to care for the Jones’.   Months ago, when I was trying to figure out where to stay in this area, I was stressing and agonizing because there have been times that I have booked a place overseas (and in Italy) based on description and pictures, only to show up and find that there really isn’t a beach next door, and… oh by the way, the hot water doesn’t work.  It’s disappointing when you spend lots of hard earned money and you don’t get what you expected.

I found this place on-line after searching, researching and reading reviews.  I needed a place that fit in our budget. I choose the Casa San Matteo because of all the excellent reviews.  However, The Casa San Matteo has exceeded our expectations becoming our little slice of heaven on earth!  I feel like a queen here.  This place is so beautiful with the high ceilings, the architecture, the art, the windows, the tile,

…. and of course the view.
After traveling to the corners of the world and seeing the poverty that I see, I feel so undeserving.  What a gift this has been and what a treat to be surrounded by such exquisite beauty.

And then there is Positano.  What can I say?  I passed through this place 25 years ago as a young college student.  It left an impression and I always knew I wanted to return.

Stephen says we will come back.

We threw our plans out the window this week skipping all the excursions we had planned.  We decided to soak it all in while in Positano.  In a beautiful place like this you don’t want to rush.  As tourists, it’s easy to feel like you must see everything.  It’s tempting to go and go and gather all the post cards and learn every story.  I suppose for some this is ok, but for us, because of all the travel we do, we decided to stop and enjoy this place, this gift.  No big tours, no big excursions, only flowers, the view, the sea, the sand, the food, the art, the people, the little bakery up the stairs, the shoe shop down the hill that makes shoes on site, the Italian woman yelling up the way, the waiter singing as he serves.  This is what we wanted in these few days.  The glory of God wrapped up in a small town of 2,500, on the Amalfi coast of Italy.

Beauty is to be enjoyed, never rushed.

Tomorrow we head up to Rome, however, we hired a friend of Marco’s to drive us. He calls himself an artist of special trips, and he is creating a journey for us to see things the Italian way.  He is planning something special.

Something special.

Sounds like my kind of journey.

Sometimes it’s hard to reconcile the things that I have seen in the world with the…“something special”.

Why me?

Why “something special”?

I think there is something special in every place, whether at home or in Italy, or in the slums of Nairobi, or the shanty house of Guatemala. Our eyes just need to open up enough to see it and our ears just need to open up enough to hear it.

He loves us.  Oh How He loves us. God has something special for us.

As the bells ring on our final evening in Positano, all I feel is a sense of gratefulness for this life and this time, realizing that…

…beauty is to be enjoyed, never rushed.