The List: #205- Washington DC (Bonus/50)

 The Nation's Capital! 

Was again, at trip that I didn't know that I was going to be taking so quickly. 

So, my roommate Sarah and I were planning on going to DC sometime this year. The thing is we put in a random date to see what the airfare would be like. That dates we picked were 90 DOLLARS ROUND TRIP. So, we book right then and there and made plans to go! Then a few weeks before we left, Sarah's step dad also joined us. 

Now, we only had four days and three nights here, and we hit the ground running. We walked as saw all of the memorials that any of us thought would be cool to see. The Washington Movement, The Vietnam Wall, and the World War II memorial just to name a few.

We hit up a few of the Smithsonian museums, which I won't get into here because this is actually a separate thing on my List that I need to write about.  

We also went to the museum of the Bible, which has got to be one of the coolest exhibits that I have ever seen being able to walk through the bible. 

Now, here is the really cool part that God is so awesome for. 

So, we need to go back to the trip to Italy I took, literally that same time last year. I was supposed to see so many things and places on that trip. The one thing that I wanted to see more than anything else in Rome was Michelangelo's Pieta. Those who don't know the name, it's the statue of Mary holding Jesus after is was crucified.

I saw a very small picture in an Art History text book in high school, and it was the first piece of art that has ever moved me. I like seeing pictures that people have created over the years, and other statues as well, but I have never wanted to see art with my own eyes more than I have wanted to see Pieta. Which is why I have always wanted to go to Rome first when I one day would travel the world. 

It's still heartbreak to know that I got so very very close and didn't get to see it. However, with reflection, and a lot of realizations, about the trip last year, and I am glad that I didn't get to see it. If I got to see it then, all of my memories tied with the first visit would have been marred with all of the awful heart that was soon to show itself in my life. 

Yet, God still shows His ability to restore, and heal at the same time. 

The Bible Museum is so massive that you can spend eight hours a day, for a week, and still need more time to read and see everything. The time frame we had made up have to go up and down flights of stair in an odd order to get see the most bang for our buck. So, after two hours or use going up and down the elevator, we finally got to a point where we can get on one floor and work out way down with the stairs. 

I did not expect to nearly burst out into tears walking turning the corner of the stair from the 6th floor to the 5th floor. 

 

The Bible Museum has a plaster cast of the very statue that I have always dreamed of seeing. The even more crazy thing? That shirt was the very same shirt that I wore to Vatican City in (ironically) a Hail Mary attempt to see it. It was like God was saying that He was still here. Still watching. Still knew that desires that I have, even if I am terrified to ever go back to Italy again at the moment. I know that when I do go, it's going to be a much better trip and somehow well worth the wait. 

God restored my love and desire to see this statue again. The worst moments of my life, the year of internally struggling, in my darkest hours, He restored. This moment captured in that statue was truly the darkest moments in all of history. The Savior of world's life snuffed out, with no hope and no way of knowing what comes next. Then suddenly, He's alive and we know what's coming! 

I had a expectations when I came to DC, but I never thought that restoration, even in some small degree, was what was in store for me. And it's not the only thing the God restored for me from that failed trip! 

These past few months God has been working in some really sweet ways in my life and He did not have to. I am so thankful that I got to go on this trip, and that God put things in my path and gave me the opportunity to see a work of art I have always wanted to see, even if it wasn't the way I wanted to.