Only HE Knows the Perfect Time for Us!

Tuesday, 18 Mar 08, 11.05am at home

Good day, diary!
I'm cooking beef rendang now, while waiting for the meats cooked, I'm writing my diary. Suddenly I have the mood to write because I remembered the incident happened last Friday when I was buying shinkansen tickets to Kyoto.

My schedule last Friday was I needed to go to 3 different places:
1. Post Office to settle some letter issues
2. Tokyo Station to buy tickets
3. Minami Tsunamachi for weekly groceries shopping
I brought an umbrella, a big travel bag, and a fold-able trolley which I put inside my big black backpack. This is my groceries shopping 'uniform'. After finishing my issue in post office, the rain started to fall. I opened up my umbrella. I should get the money from ATM first to buy the tickets before going to Tokyo station. But, because of the rain, I was lazy to go to ATM which was actually just across the street. I went straight to the Tokyo station with a hope that I would find an ATM there. ATM should be anywhere all over the town, rite?

After I reached Tokyo station by train, I thought that I wouldn't go out from the station. So, just buy the tickets and go, therefore I wouldn't need to pay the train fare from my home to the Tokyo station. *Stingy!!* Hush! I went to Tokyo station many times before but I couldn't believe that this station was so BIGGG!! I was searching for the ATM inside the station but couldn't find any. After asking the information center, there was finally one ATM in the corner. But, my card couldn't be used to withdraw money! I don't know why, I don't know how, and I don't wanna know now.

I saw the shinkansen ticket office was just over there, in front of my eyes! I regretted so much that I didn't withdraw the money from the ATM near post office! Then, I decided to go out from the station and find ATM outside the building. I didn't care about saving the small money of the train fare anymore, I had walked for 1 hour with heavy bag on my back!

At that time, I was in the center of the building. The Marunochi central exit was just on my left, very near to where I stood. Yaesu central exit was on my right, very far. At that time I could say that 'stupid-me' chose to go out from Yaesu central exit, which was very far from my postition. *Come on, ATM is everywhere! You purposely want to walk around?* Hey, I had walked enough, okay? Anyway, I had to walk soooo long before finally finding the exit. The rain was falling very very very heavily outside at that time. I didn't know the whereabout the ATM. I just walked under the heavy rain and suddenly I saw my bank just in front of me! Not just the ATM, but the bank! Well, I just needed to withdraw quite a bit of my money, not my whole deposit. But, I started to feel that God gave me more than what I needed! First mission was accomplished!

Then, I went back to the station again. I entered any entrance door nearest from the bank (there are lotss of entrance doors) and started to walk and walk and walk till I finally saw THE SHINKANSEN TICKET OFFICE. Good, I started to queue. While queuing, my eyes saw TOKAI TOUR TICKET OFFICE right in front of where I queued. Suddenly I remembered something written in online forum when I was searching how to buy shinkansen ticket to Kyoto:
"You can buy cheap shinkansen ticket to Kyoto only at Tokai Tour Office. Normal price is Y13,750, in Tokai Tour you can buy the ticket at Y9,800 only. The office is very hard to find since it's just small office. Please find the map here"

I completely forgot about Tokai and about printing the map. But, I could find it!! I went straight to the Tokai Office and bought the tickets with cheap price! I realized something, this is His purpose to let me find the ATM outside the station. Without me going outside, I would never find the Tokai office.

Do you know what's the message of the story? Don't ever feel down, although the process is painful but everything is beautiful in His time. Just be patient, He's with us always even in sad times when we feel that He's not with us. Only He knows the perfect time for us, we never know!

Well, this is just very simple testimonial of mine. Nothing to show off. But.. I guess.. you know.. what I mean is.. yes.. that's it! Blessing is blessing, nothing big, nothing small!

-Abbie-