Thursday, June 30, 2011

Utterly Dependent

The title of this post may very well make a reader believe it's going to be deep. Spiritual. A discussion of our helplessness without the Lord.   Nope. This post is about my internet!  
My husband and two precious teenagers are now in Manila and in just a few hours they will meet Francis in person for the first time!!!!!!   Our family of seven becomes a family of eight in just six hours or so!  How blessed I am! Also, how neurotic! 
If I had decided to sit down and post yesterday, the post would have had a very different tone. Exasperated. Upset. Despondent.  Ungrateful.  Our internet has been down for three days due to some severe storm activity.
I called to get help from our company only to find that no technician was available for FIVE WHOLE DAYS. 
Normally that would not be a big deal. I may have even welcomed the "outage" as a chance to get back to playing board games with the kids or cleaning out some unvisited corner of my house. But my family is overseas! I was not going to be able to skype in on their first meeting.   I was so distraught.  To top it all off, I went out into our backyard yesterday while the two youngest children were watching a cartoon. I was gone for literally three minutes. When I tried to reenter the house, I found Ezekiel had opened our laundry room door and "trapped" me outside.  I panicked and pushed the door so hard that it bent the track the laundry room door rests on and knocked it right off!!!   I tried to fix it but it's awkward, heavy and I'm no "handy woman".  I decided to "google" an article on how to repair the door track when it dawned on me, I had no internet connection.  Add the fact that it was still two more days until grocery day and I had nothing "easy" to make for dinner so I knew that thawing, chopping and plenty of cooking were on my agenda.
How's that for a whiny run-down of a day????? I went to the front porch and had a pity party which involved a few tears and a good bit of praying.   Suddenly, two things dawned on me.  First, I thought about  how ridiculously I was behaving.  I talk and blog about the sovereignty of God and suddenly when my day goes south, He's not in charge?  It's not a part of His plan in any way, shape or form?  Second, I had a wave of compassion for all the single mothers out there!  I can't handle two days of "singleness" with grace and yet I know women who have done it for years!  Who changes their lightbulbs? Who watches the kids for an hour while they go to book club?  Who puts their laundry room doors back on track and says "oh, you look tired, let's go out for pizza tonight"? Who takes the dogs out at the end of the night because they get all creeped out at the thought of stepping on a frog or a snake?  Nobody. 
If any part of God's plan for yesterday included making me grateful for my amazing, handsome, handy man of a husband, I can confidently say "mission accomplished".    If any part of the enemy's plan for yesterday included exploiting some pretty lame aspects of my character, I can also say "mission accomplished".  
I can't help but think about the apostle Paul and how content he learned to be "in every circumstance".
I want so much to think like that and right now, I do.  My internet is back on, the door is fixed and my sweet neighbor is bringing us dinner! 
What a difference a day makes. 

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