They're all  gone now.  The last two left at 6:30 this morning.  Shiloh is completely empty.  For the first time all month long.  Nobody in the house.  Nobody coming to Shiloh.  Our next reservation is for Friday.  With more coming on Saturday.  And on and on it will go.  Of course there are always those surprises.  Anybody could phone at any time.  Or send an email requesting a room.  Or just show up at the gate hoping against hope that there is a room just waiting for them.  

But this moment, this quiet moment, is a gift from God.  Back in the early years I used to be troubled by quiet days.  What are we doing wrong?  Why isn't anybody here?  Should we change this?  Or maybe we should change that?  I would look back in the reservation book to see what it was like this day one year ago.  And if I found that we were crazy busy back then, I'd be all worried.  Wondering what we had changed.  What we're doing to drive people away.  Slowly I figured it out.  Those down times, those quiet days, those are rare gifts from God.  He knows when we need to be quiet.  He knows when we need to re-group.  He knows when we need to recover.  He knows that it is OK to just be Papa Jim and Mama Alice without any guests at all.  And He does all things well.

So we've been enjoying a whole day of solitude.  Hours and hours of quiet.  Peace.  No pressure.  No keeping an eye on the time.  No last minute preparations.   Nobody knocking on our bedroom door.  Nobody ringing the bell at the gate.  It's been fantastic.  What a great gift.  

Tonight we are going to do something we do on rare occasions.  We're going to check out the bed in one of our guest bedrooms.  Several guests back we had a complaint from someone.  Said the bed was too soft.  When we quarried him, he allowed as how he has a bad back.  But  bad back or bad bed, we need to find out.  And so we will spend the night in that room and judge for ourselves.  We rarely get complaints about anything, but when we do, we always check it out.  Over the years we've spent the night in every single bed in the house, tried out every single bathroom, experienced Shiloh from every angle through the eyes of our guests.  And we've learned a lot.  Made a few tweaks here and there.  So if you hear our snores coming from a strange corner of Shiloh, you'll understand why.