Step 1 challenges me to see that my life “has become unmanageable.” I actually find it helpful to acknowledge that my life IS and has always been unmanageable. No matter how hard I try to keep all my ducks in a row, sometime during the day they all go waddling off in strange unpredictable directions. The fascinating thing is that I’m always so shocked. “Things are not going as I have outlined! What’s going on here?” I ask myself in dismay. Then I make a firmer resolve and I get up the next morning and try keeping it all together again. There is nothing more plain, that I resist with more gusto, than the fact that life IS basically unmanageable.
This truth is right before our eyes from the get go. Last week I took a look around at the Grand-kids. Gracie had a big bruise on her forehead from running into something she hadn’t counted on. Ethan had road rash on his arm from a unpredictable scooter crash, and one-year-old Matthew decided to give Esther a surprise bonk on the head to commemorate her first birthday.
There are surprises around every corner. Things are not going to go as planned. One key to a happy day is to resist the temptation to take all the surprises personally. No one is out to get me. It’s the nature of life. Today I make a prayerful plan with a pencil, and that pencil has an eraser on it for good reason. God’s not just watching for my commitment and dedication. He’s helping me learn to roll with the punches. He does that by allowing for plenty of surprises. Surprises make life rich. They keep it fresh and interesting.
Yesterday Matthew was playing with a large wooden maraca he’d gotten out of my box of musical instruments from the toy closet. I picked him up to give him a little love and before I knew it he’d wound up and whacked me on the head. It wasn’t personal. It was just a “Surprise Grandma!”
By Nannette W.
Posted Saturday, July 25, 2009
Copyright 2008 by Nannette W. All rights reserved. Making or sending copies is permitted if the page is not changed in any way and the material is not used for profit. This notice must be included on each copy made or sent.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Gratitude In the Laundry Room
In February our son Andrew returned home from a mission to Uruguay. The afternoon and evening of his first day home were filled with family and food and old friends. Not much attention was paid to his luggage or its contents until the next morning. “Mom, I need you to help me with some wash,” he said, standing in the living room with an arm full of what might have once been called a batch of “whites.”
Down the stairs we headed, into the laundry room. After receiving an email from him every week for two years I suddenly had new appreciation for his experience as he let me in a little fact I had not known. “Ya, I’ve been washing my clothes by hand for two years.” I lifted up the lid and he put in a large batch of “grays.” I reintroduced him to the mechanics of this machine that I take for granted at least twice a day. In his best Spanish drenched English, his next words spoke volumes on the dedication and humility of a full time representative of Jesus Christ. With a little wonder in his voice he simply said, “Hey, these cleaning machines are really nice!”
I’ve been doing laundry in the same room for 34 years now. “Inspired” is not the word I would use to describe my daily experience with the family wash. However, that morning as I closed the door and climbed the stairs, hearing Andrew’s dingy whites sloshing in the background, I felt a keen desire to be more willing to make sacrifices in order to do the Lord’s work and to never take “cleaning machines” and such for granted.
By Nannette W.
Posted Thursday, July 9, 2009
Copyright 2008 by Nannette W. All rights reserved. Making or sending copies is permitted if the page is not changed in any way and the material is not used for profit. This notice must be included on each copy made or sent.
Down the stairs we headed, into the laundry room. After receiving an email from him every week for two years I suddenly had new appreciation for his experience as he let me in a little fact I had not known. “Ya, I’ve been washing my clothes by hand for two years.” I lifted up the lid and he put in a large batch of “grays.” I reintroduced him to the mechanics of this machine that I take for granted at least twice a day. In his best Spanish drenched English, his next words spoke volumes on the dedication and humility of a full time representative of Jesus Christ. With a little wonder in his voice he simply said, “Hey, these cleaning machines are really nice!”
I’ve been doing laundry in the same room for 34 years now. “Inspired” is not the word I would use to describe my daily experience with the family wash. However, that morning as I closed the door and climbed the stairs, hearing Andrew’s dingy whites sloshing in the background, I felt a keen desire to be more willing to make sacrifices in order to do the Lord’s work and to never take “cleaning machines” and such for granted.
By Nannette W.
Posted Thursday, July 9, 2009
Copyright 2008 by Nannette W. All rights reserved. Making or sending copies is permitted if the page is not changed in any way and the material is not used for profit. This notice must be included on each copy made or sent.
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