Monday, October 15, 2007

Thank God for Spilled Coke

I'm not even 100% sure I should type this and admit it to the whole world (okay, so it is actually just a couple close friends, but potentially anyone could read this), but I feel compelled because it just shows how great our God is.

It was an absolutely crazy week last week. We were preparing for our first Kaleo event, a carnival at American Kids, which is where our church will meet. Neither Brent nor I are great party planners. We really need someone to help with all the details. We are thankful to have Eric, but I don't think he is super detail oriented either. So, here you have three not so organized people trying to pull off an event that needed to be organized, knowing very few people in this city to call on for help. So, Monday night I lost my cell phone. I have yet to find it and have just about determined that I must have thrown it away with the Sonic trash when we finally got home Monday evening after driving around and hanging flyers. A few days later, I lost my purse. It has been recovered. It was actually in my room under pillows. I hadn't made my bed! But the worst thing is what happened on Saturday.

We took the boys to their soccer games; then came home to finish stuff up before heading to set up for the party. Brent and Eric left with the boys. Sarah was down for a short nap, and there was still some things that needed to be printed, so I began printing while letting Sarah rest. In the meantime, I received a phone call and talked for a few minutes while stuff finished printing. When I was done printing, I gathered everything, the papers, Sarah's diaper bag, jackets because it was overcast and may have gotten cold, and a Diet Coke. I locked up the house, closed the garage door and went to the van. I loaded everything up, and when I put my coke in the holder, I somehow set it down funny, and it splashed all over the radio and console area. I was irritated, but I grabbed the diaper bag, grabbed the wipies, and cleaned up the mess. I used the only two wipies that were in the diaper bag, so I decided I should run in and get some more.

So, I went inside to the kids bathroom where I keep the wipies. They weren't there, so I decided they must have been in Sarah's room. I flung the door open to look for them, and there, lying in her bed sound asleep, was my daughter. I had completely forgotten that she was at home. I almost drove off and left her. It was so far from my mind that she was at home, that I am just about sure I would have driven all the way to my destination before I realized she was not with Brent. I knew she was home, but my mind failed me. American Kids is a good 20 minute drive from our house, and I don't know any phone numbers for my neighbors, so she would have been home for 40 minutes by herself, or I would have had to call the police. It was a terrible, terrible feeling. I have never done anything like that. Stress is a terrible thing.

But God is so good and so caring. I can just picture his hand tipping that drink so that the series of events that followed would take place. I am so thankful that I have a God who loves me and who watches out for me and for my children (even in my moments of weakness). Almost forgetting my child makes the loss of my cell phone seem so completely insignificant, although it is still frustrating. I have got to learn to slow down and relax, even when things are crazy and there are deadlines and I am having to work outside of my strengths, but it is so hard. When I was at Pine Cove this summer, Sarah was sick, so she could not go to child care most of the week, so she sat in sessions with us. While she was pretty good, I was distracted and missed a lot of what the speaker said, but behind him, on the wall, was a large canvas, with the verse, "Be still and know that I am God." Psalm 46:10. All week I thought about that and about how hard it is for me to be still. I am terrible at it. On the last day of camp, I talked about how much I needed to work on that. When we got back, initially, I did a little better, but as things have come up and there are deadlines, it has been hard to stop and be still.

Caroline Casselberry bought me a sign that has that verse on it, and I wake up to see it every morning, and yet it is still so hard. I need to figure out how to slow down and let God do His thing, even in times of deadlines! If not, I might miss amazing opportunities or do things that could potentially cause harm to someone (such as leaving a 2 year old home alone). The other thing is that I hate stress, and God would like to take that stress from me, if I would just stop long enough to give it to Him. He would also probably like for me stop and refocus without having to make a mess!

2 comments:

Kevin Morrison said...

we were staying at a hotel once and I unloaded everything up to our room... except for Holly who was sleeping in the car. I didn't know she was sleeping. I figured she had gotten out with Jill and Layton. So my immediate discovery was simply that my daughter was gone. Luckily it was only a few minutes before we figured out where she was, but it was frightening just the same.

Rick and Kylee said...

That's ok, we once let connor at the dallas airport and didn't realize where he was until we got home. I know that we should have realized it sometime during the eight hour flight but we didn't. It was a real mess but he's out of foster care now and with some more counseling, he will be back to normal.

Ok, so none of that really happened because we are good parents but I was trying to make you feel better. What are younger brothers for? How are the hotdogs in cali?