When life doesn't go the way you planned...

Pin It It's 6:45am here in Peru and I'm wide awake with free time all to myself.  With my husband busily preparing to teach his seminary class and three little ones from preschool age on down, I was almost too shocked by this sudden burst of freedom to do anything!  Maybe I'm just recovering from the way the day began.  Let's roll back the clock to 5:00 am....

5:00 am 
The baby: Waaaaahhhh!!!
Me: (sigh...roll out of bed, and walk down the hallway) Good morning, princess!

The princess coo's and then complains loudly that I am taking too long to start the feeding process.
 We stumble back down to my room and I grudgingly wake up.  It's not that I don't want to help her out in her moment of distress, it's just that my mind doesn't function so well before I've had time to put on my glasses!

When she's finished I figure that since I'm already awake I might as well make it a productive morning.  I quickly iron two shirts for my husband (It seems easier to do a two-for-one ironing so that tomorrow I can sleep in!)  Then I hear that another child is awake.

5:30 am
The 5 yr. old: (mumbling to himself loudly in his room...He has a bad habit of telling himself stories at 3 am at a volume level that awakens the entire household.)
Me: If you're going to be up talking I'm going to give you some schoolwork to do. (In my brilliant mind I'm thinking that he can be done with school by 6 am, eat breakfast, and go back to sleep!  What was I thinking?)

So...I went downstairs and started washing the pile of dishes awaiting me from yesterday afternoon when the water went off.  (another story in itself).  I put breakfast in the oven, rolled the baby into the office to "visit" with Daddy for a little while, and with a sense of accomplishment decided to check on my son before beginning my Bible study.  And that's when it happened...

He had climbed up on the desk in our schoolroom and was kneeling with all his weight ON TOP OF MY BRAND NEW COMPUTER!  (Believe me when I say, I almost had a heart attack!)

Me: YOU'RE ON TOP OF MY COMPUTER!!!!! (and then before I could react in my state of shock I sent him to work at the dining room table downstairs under my eagle eye of supervision).

Needless to say, I was not expecting to see that and I quickly rushed over to check the condition of my poor, crushed friend.  I must give kudos to HP for their sound craftsmanship on this own because the computer escaped unscathed, which is why I am able to type this now.

Later on, when I was calm enough to interrogate him I asked him if he saw my computer in the desk.

His answer? Yes, I saw it under the papers.

Then I asked him why he would do such a thing.  (O, how I wanted to scream at that moment...)

It has taken about an hour to get over it...and the culprit?  He finished up his schoolwork with an amazing attention to detail normally lacking (maybe he was trying to get back into my good graces.)  He ate his breakfast quickly and then meekly asked if he could return to his bed.

I sent him merrily on his way with the stern reminder that he was not to awaken his 3 yr. old brother.  I had had enough drama in one hour to last me the entire day without incurring his wrath at being awakened "before his time"

As I am just now settling down after some "quiet time" in the book of Esther I think about how insignificant my moment of drama was when compared to hers.  Uprooted from her home, from her people, taken captive with only the hope of being a slave to the king in the future, and then through a twist of circumstances facing certain death at the hands of an enemy who would see her people annihilated.

Proverbs 9:10 tells us that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom".  To know what to do in a difficult situation, to know how to respond when things don't go the way you planned, to show wisdom every step of the way requires help from Almighty God.  In the difficult times in my life I need God's wisdom to guide me and to sustain me.  I can't wait until the hard times come to begin searching. I need to seek God's wisdom NOW in order to be ready to face whatever may come.

Today's devotional verse from the Love God Greatly bible study on Esther is Psalms 112:1 which states,

Praise ye the Lord. Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord, that delighteth greatly in his commandments.

It's not enough for me to know what God commands.  I need to joyfully obey His commands and take joy or delight in the who, what, when, where, why and how of how He is leading me.  My attitude is everything. 

Here is the weekly challenge from week 2.  Head on over to the Love God Greatly website for more inspiration.

May you take joy in His leading. 

Be blessed as you follow Christ today!