Have you ever had one of those days? You know, the ones on which everything just seems to be unexpected & unplanned? And not in a good way either. To be honest with you, I feel like 2020 has been one of those years! I bet there’s a good chance you can relate.
I was recently reminded of lessons I learned on one of those days years ago.
There was a morning years ago that was exactly one of THOSE days. I got up on time, got the kiddos up on time but they were dragging. Not one of the four of them was ready when they needed to be. No amount of politely asking them seemed to do the trick so I moved on to being firm and logical about the benefits of good choices and the consequences of bad choices. I am sure by the way they responded all they heard was blah blah blah blah blah.
Completely frustrated (me that is) we finally walked out the door ten minutes late only to discover my van had a nice coat of frost over all the windows. My oldest two children were fighting over whether or not you could scrape ice with a squeegee, one with the handle in their hand and the other with the actual squeegee part in their hand. ***Deep sigh***.
Hubby, who is also running behind, emerges from the house ready for work and begins to help me scrape ice, so very thankful for him, my visual example of sanity and peace in the midst of chaos. Okay, all done, we finally pulled out of the driveway only 20 minutes behind schedule.
The children were all complaining they were going to be late and when I reminded them that none of them were ready on time, someone decides to snidely point out that if I had only started the van earlier so it could have warmed up…, and then all I heard was blah blah blah blah blah.
Once all of them were safely at school and no one was tardy and no speeding tickets were involved, I began to pray on the drive home. I am prayed for peace and for forgiveness for being so short tempered. I asked for wisdom on how to make mornings go more smoothly.
While I was taking a few minutes of quiet to try to regroup, I noticed a car that had gone off the road and into the ditch with a pretty steep embankment. The ditch had quite a bit of water due to heavy rains and I knew that car was not coming out of that ditch without a wrecker. Out stepped a young man who ran up the slope around to the driver side and opened the door for the young lady who was driving, she was visibly shaken. I rolled down my window to ask if they were okay, and they were, grandparents had been called and were on the way. The young man stated he would walk to school. I offered him a ride because it was cold and because I knew that if he walked he would certainly be late.
As I turned around to take him to school I learned the driver was his sister, a junior in high school who had only had her license for a few months. I asked him again if he was okay, questions like did you hit your head on anything, are you feeling light headed or dizzy, you know the over protective mama kind of questions, I hoped another woman would do the same if it were my child. He seemed to be calm, cool and collected, I encouraged him to call his grandparents or go to the nurse if he started feeling badly as I dropped him at the door of the school.
On the way home again, thinking about how the morning has unfolded and all of the sudden I was deeply ashamed of how frustrated I had been about being so far behind schedule. I realized that God had me right where he needed me to be all along, on His schedule, to be able to offer a few comforting words to a couple of high school kids in a scary situation and to do my part, albeit little, to help out.
Here I am in 2020. My life, not unlike most people’s, has been rerouted by the current pandemic. Not just that though, loss and grief have altered my course in many ways. In my human nature, I could easily fall into the same exasperation and frustrations I felt that morning years ago. Fortunately, I have learned over time that I can bring all those emotions to the Lord and exchange them for His peace and His assurance. He will help me to rest in the knowledge that He holds my every moment in His hands, all have been ordained by Him, and He has a plan for all of them.
What do you need to bring to the Lord today? Let me know in the comments. I would be honored to pray for you during this challenging season.
