Unrest

There is a lot of unrest in our country right now. 

I am not a person of influence. I do not feel I am one who can or should speak on the internet about most of the issues.  I truly hate that seemingly all issues have become political. Hatred and injustice of any kind are horrible and disgusting and tragic. The best thing I can do is pray to Jesus, who is the only One who can truly help us spread love in the place of all the hatred, judgement and fear. His love covers everything.

Of course, my favorite way to pray is with music...

Struggling with God's Plan

Sometimes, a girl needs some ice cream to get her mind off things.

The time has come for my dear, sweet Sylvie girl to learn about "the facts of life," poor girl.  

At our public school, this is taught at the beginning of 5th grade. A local church has a wonderful seminar each Spring which presents this information from a distinctly christian perspective, and I wanted Sylvia to get to experience this seminar (which includes God's plan) before getting the information (which does not include God's plan) at school next Fall.  So, I sat down with her a few nights ago with a wonderful book and started to explain some things.  She did not take it well, and doesn't want to think about such things.  

Today we attended the first session of the "Your Body, God's Plan" seminar, and she did not like it one bit.  As we talked some more in the car after the seminar, she continued to struggle with not wanting anything to do with this part of God's plan.  (Boy, was I relieved to tell her that what she is learning about is not part of God's plan for her right now!!)  

We decided that ice cream was needed immediately to get her mind off the subject for a while.  She chose a strawberry cheesecake treat that was just the right thing.

"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth." - Psalm 139:13-15

Hats, help, hugs for a momma's heart

Since we told the kids about the Disney trip, they have been using everything Disney they have, creating art about Disney, and just generally finding every way possible they can think of to celebrate the thought of Disney.  Caeden has been wearing his Mickey ears hat around the house at all times.

Yesterday, I was having "one of those days" where I was just feeling really [the bad kind of] overwhelmed about all I needed to get done, how messy and dirty the house was, how I am not keeping up with life as well as I want to, and so on...  

I'd been at the school all afternoon, helping with the junior high choir and going to the assembly to see Sylvia awarded.  I took the kids right from school into town for their music lessons.  (I did have the presence of mind [Thank you, Jesus!] to take them to Wendy's for a quick Frosty for an after-school-snack, which was really fun.)  Then, I dropped them off at lessons and did some speed-shopping at Kroger, picked them up from lessons, drove home, unloaded all the groceries in the cold.  I was getting weepy by that point, and the kids were all wonderful and helped me unload and put groceries away.  

We ate fried chicken and potato chips I'd picked up at the store for supper. (Eek, how bad for us, I know!!)  The girls started in on homework and showers, and I had to, had to, had to sit down and practice music for a funeral that was today.  (That's another story, which includes my bad attitude and how God really wanted me to do something I didn't want to do.  Maybe I'll get to it later in the post...)  Anyway, as I was practicing, I decided to get up and make some hot tea.  When I walked into our filthy, messy kitchen, this is what I saw, and it brought me to tears...

Now, I was not in tears over the filthy, messy kitchen (You would think!), but over the fact that Caeden was standing there by himself, singing, rinsing dishes, and loading the dishwasher!  He is such a stubborn boy, and complains all day long every day about every chore he is asked to do.  So, when I saw him happily doing something I didn't even ask him to do, doing it joyfully, doing it by himself, and doing it because he knew it would help his mommy...I was completely overcome with emotion.  I cried, thanked him and told him how much it was helping me, how much it meant to me, and that he is a good boy.  (I think he probably half-thought I was a bit nuts, but he is getting used to my bursting into tears at any random time.)  He just said, "You're welcome, Mommy.  Sylvia helped too.  I'm just in a good mood, so I am happy to help."  Ahhhh, such a blessing from the Lord that was!!

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So, today I had the honor of being the pianist for the funeral of a pastor on our district.  I had never met this pastor, but was asked by our District Superintendent, through my pastor, if I would accompany the ministers choir.  (All of the pastors on our district are required to be part of the funeral service of a fellow pastor by singing in the ministers choir--how awesome!) 

Honestly, my first reaction was two-fold: 1) I don't want to do this.  2) How do I get out of this?

My reaction was two-fold for at least two reasons: 1) The kids had today off school, and I was looking forward to spending the day home with them.  I didn't want to shove them off on someone else, namely the only friend I could think of who would be able to watch them--who was supposed to be enjoying her own kids' day off school.  2) I had never driven to the town where the funeral was, and it was over an hour away, and that petrifies me--often to the point of a physical anxiety attack.

Lame excuses, I know. But, I figured there ought to be at least a few others who actually knew this pastor, who would love the opportunity to play piano for his funeral service...Right?  Well, it turned out others were asked, and either no one wanted to play, or honestly no one else was available.  That part doesn't really matter...What matters is that it became very clear that even though I didn't want to play, God seemed to really want me there.  So, I resolved to change my attitude and I was honored to be part of the beautiful service celebrating and remembering this pastor's life.  

The drive there was actually quite easy, and I thank God for reassuring me with my iphone GPS.  (Seriously, it is amazing how much that helps my driving anxiety, and how many prayers of thanks I have offered for that tool!)  

The service was wonderful.  It was very powerful to worship with the pastors of our district and see them mourn their friend and celebrate this man's passing into heaven!  How glorious!  It really was a blessing to be part of it.  I am always blessed when I choose to obey the Lord.

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This afternoon, I picked the kids up from Dawn.  They were having so much fun, it took us about 2 hours to leave.  We headed home and did some quick picking up.  Then we loaded in the car to head to town.  I dropped the girls off at Ashley's house for her birthday slumber party.  Then Caeden and I headed over to pick up Samuel to come sleep over at our house.  

Caeden has been wearing this hat for a couple weeks (minus the recent days when he's substituted the Mickey ears).  He even sleeps with it on at night sometimes.  I love that he likes it so much.  I figured he was wearing it mostly because it is super soft, but when I asked him what made it his favorite hat, he said, "My Great Grandma made it for me!"  I love that.

Driving

Driving...

I spend more time doing it than I would like.  That's probably because I don't like doing it at all.  And, because it's at least 15 minutes or more to get anywhere I need to go since we live in a rural area.

Today I drove "to town" (25 miles) to go to the dentist.  Just a cleaning.  In and out in under an hour...plus the 50 minutes [total] it took me to get there and back home.

Yesterday I drove to the doctor.  I had to figure out what in the world is this creepin' crud I've had for nearly a month now.  (Seems like it's a combination of sinus infection, allergies, and asthma set off by the other two things.  3 kinds of drugs, and I should be feeling better in a few days!)

I've never really liked to drive, and I have a pretty bad anxiety of driving places I've never driven--even if I've been there before and just haven't' driven it myself.  It's not pretty. 

A couple months ago, I had to drive to the building where our new church will be.  I had been there a few times, but Jeremy had always driven.  (That means, I didn't really pay attention to how we got there.)  It's in a part of town with which I'm unfamiliar.  I had the kids with me, and we were rushing to get there on time too. I called Jeremy a few times on the way there, and had him tell me twice exactly how to get there--including every stop light, turn, landmark, distance, etcetera.  Then I repeated it back to him and he verified that I understood how to get there.  I prayed before we left, and the whole time on the way there.Still, when driving it, I was incredibly uptight, sitting up straighter than any normal human normally would when driving; I was very snippy with the kids and made them sit in complete silence all the way there.  I freaked out part way there, because there was construction along the way.  Then I freaked out once I got through the construction and didn't know where the road I was supposed to turn down was.  I tried calling Jeremy and he didn't answer, so I freaked out some more.  I only exhaled 35 minutes later when I got us there safely.  I apologized to the kids and went inside to the bathroom.  I looked in the mirror and my entire neck and chest was broken out in hives.

Serioulsy ridiculous.

I'm fine going there now, by the way.  Once I do it successfully by myself one time, it's okay.  It's like a major issue I have to conquer each time I go somewhere I haven't driven myself.

I'm not really sure why I have this anxiety, except that maybe it somehow stems from the terrible fact that two of my high school friends were killed in car accidents during the years I was learning to drive.  One was killed by a drunk driver, and the other was a passenger in a car full of students passing a school bus on their way to school one morning.  Both were friends who were part of my daily life at school and in choir, and losing them clearly impacted me emotionally.  Perhaps these accidents have something to do with my driving anxiety.

After I graduated from college, I worked as an admission counselor for the university for two years.  Part of my job was traveling to the territory I was responsible for in northeast Ohio...all places I'd never been, by myself, in a rental car, without the modern frills of Google Maps, GPS, and smartphones.  Looking back, I really don't know how I did it, other than now knowing God had angels literally surrounding me every moment I was driving!  I even enjoyed the traveling!  It was very stressful for me getting to the schools and college fairs, but I loved the time at the events so much, I was able to overlook the amount of stress getting there put on me.  

I will never forget the time I was on my way to visit Bishop Hoban High School in Akron, Ohio.  I was to be there and set up my Capital table during the lunch time, and I visited some other school in the morning.  I always tried to verify with someone at the previous school what the best way to get to my next school was.  I'd been advised to ask the Athletic Directors at schools, because they have to provide sports teams with directions to schools they compete against and usually know the best way to get to area schools.  Made sense to me.  So, I asked the A.D. at whatever school I was leaving if my directions to Bishop Hoban were the best way to get there.  Oh, no, no, no...that wasn't exactly how I should go.  So, he gave me "better" instructions.  I remember him telling me to take a particular exit off the Interstate, and that I would see "HOBAN" in big letters on a hill off to the left before I'd get to my exit.       

Welllllllllll...somehow I never saw Hoban on the hill, and the exit numbers were higher than they should have been.  So, I decided I needed to get off the Interstate and into Akron somewhere to get directions.  I saw the Main Street exit, and figured there would be a gas station or some kind of patronized establishment on Main Street where I could ask someone how to get to Bishop Hoban High School.  I turn onto Main Street in Akron, Ohio, in the middle of lunchtime on a weekday, and it was literally like a ghost town.  Not a soul to be seen!!!  That freaked me out pretty well.

I did see a police car at the side of the road and noticed there were two policemen sitting in it.  I pulled up behind them, and approached the passenger side from the sidewalk.  The very nice policemen quickly asked me what in the world I was doing alone in that area?!?!  When I explained to them that I was lost and where I needed to go, they told me to get back in my car quickly and follow them "wherever" they went, no matter what!  They (and, consequently, I) seriously drove over sidewalks to get to Bishop Hoban High School, which was, of course, fairly nearby.  They showed me exactly where to park and told me to only leave by a particular route.  Yeah.  Driving over sidewalks in Akron, Ohio...another of my "great" driving memories.

So.

Since switching from an Android phone to an iPhone, the thing I miss the most is the robotic voice GPS lady on my Droid.  The iPhone doesn't have sound with its Google Maps navigation.  I think I need to find a voice app to go with it so I can drive places I've never been without breaking out into hives.