So this morning was one of THOSE mornings for some reason. I did get up on time, got the kiddos up on time but they were dragging. Not one of the four of them was ready on time. No amount of politely asking them seemed to do the trick so I moved on to being firm and logical about the benefits of good choices and the consequences of bad choices. I am sure by the way they responded all they heard was blah blah blah blah blah.
Completely frustrated (me that is) we finally walk out the door ten minutes late only to discover my van had a nice coat of frost over all the windows and my oldest two children fighting over whether or not you could scrape ice with a squeegee, one with the handle in their hand and the other with the actual squeegee part in their hand. ***Deep sigh***.
Hubby, who is also running behind, emerges from the house ready for work and begins to help me scrape ice, so very thankful for him, my visual example of sanity and peace in the midst of chaos. Okay, all done, we're finally pulling out of the driveway only 20 minutes behind schedule.
The children are all complaining they are going to be late now and when I remind them that none of them were ready on time, someone decides to snidely point out that if I had only started the van earlier so it could have warmed up, and then all I heard was blah blah blah blah blah.
Once all of them are safely at school and no one is tardy and no speeding tickets were involved, I begin to pray while am driving. I am praying for peace and for forgiveness for being so short tempered and for wisdom on how to make these mornings go more smoothly. (We have assigned them check off lists and charts and graphs galore with incentives to help them stay on track, all to no avail. )
So I am taking these few minutes of quiet to try to regroup when I notice a car that has gone of the road and into the ditch with a pretty steep embankment. With the rain that we have had, I know that car is not coming out of that ditch without a wrecker. Then out comes a young man who runs up the slope around to the driver side and opens the door for the young lady who was driving, she is visibly shaken. I roll down the window and ask if they are okay, and they are, grandparents have been called and on the way, young man is going to walk to school. I offer him a ride because it's cold and because I know if he walks he will be late.
As I turn around and take him to school I learn the driver is his sister, a junior in high school who has only had her license for a few months. I asked him again if he was okay, questions like did you hit your head on anything, are you feeling light headed or dizzy, you know the over protective mama kind of questions, I hope another woman would do the same if it were my child. He seemed to be calm, cool and collected, I encouraged him to call his grandparents or go to the nurse if he started feeling badly as I dropped him at the door of the school.
On the way home again, thinking about how the morning has unfolded and all of the sudden I am deeply ashamed of how frustrated I had been about being so far behind schedule because I realize that God had me right where he needed me to be all along, on his schedule, to be able to offer a few comforting words to a couple of high school kids in a scary situation and to do my part, albeit little, to help out.
Lord, help me to rest in the knowledge that you hold my every moment in your hands, all have been ordained by you, and you have a plan for all of them.
