Feeling a bit charmed...

Okay, so I promise to get on with my retreat story, perhaps even with another entry tonight, but I have to step in with a quick interlude due to today's events...

Long time fans of this blog may remember how I wound up in the 5th row of the Carrie Underwood/Keith Urban concert in Hershey last Valentine's Day. (And if you don't, here's a reminder.) For the quick version, the local country radio station does a radiothon to benefit St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital every year (as do something like 900 country radio stations nationwide in the course of a year). Last year I finally "broke down" and became a "Partner in Hope" (that's St. Jude's term for someone who commits to a minimum monthly donation throughout a year). Like most teleathon/radioathon type events, this one has various incentives to provide extra enticement for people who might want to give. The incentive during the hour I gave last year was to be entered in a drawing to win tickets in the 5th through 1st row at the concert, and I won the 5th row seats.

Well, fast forward to today, and it was radioathon time again. I've since decided that St. Jude's will be my charity of choice (outside of my commitments to giving to missions work), and so I was planning on re-upping as a "Partner in Hope" for this year. Having already made the choice to give again, I decided to wait a bit to see if there were any incentives I found particularly interesting. The incentive for the 1 pm hour caught my attention - being entered into a drawing to win a guitar autographed by Brad Paisley. I'm guessing that you've deduced by now that I wouldn't be telling this story if I hadn't won, and you're right. I was pretty stunned when they read my name again this year, especially since they had just read it about 10 minutes earlier, as one of the handful of those who signed on as Partners in Hope that they thanked by name over the air. (I had been listening most of the day, and I think they'd gone to the pile for names maybe 3 times, for a total of 8 to 10 people, but they did it like 2 minutes after I got off the phone after calling in my donation)

So, I guess you could say I'm feeling a bit charmed at the moment. I'd go play the lottery, but I actually think there's something else at work here, which is why there may be a Part 2 to this story coming at some point...