family-affair

I want to thank Pastor Brent Deffenbacher for this blog’s title.  He was talking about leaving Disneyland and returning to reality and how sometimes things just don’t go right.  He described, perfectly, how I’ve been feeling since I came back from Disneyland last month.  A friend had treated me to a flight to California and tickets to Disneyland.  We had spent two great days together at the “Happiest Place on Earth” and I was less than enthusiastic about getting back to business as usual.  At the mouse house there are no cares, no worries-especially when someone else is footing the bill.  (Thanks, D!)  The real world is bills, laundry, dishes, school, work, traffic, cooking, cleaning, disciplining…….I’d rather spin out of control on the teacups than in my own life.

So upon returning home I took to my bed, literally and figuratively.  I was unmotivated to exercise or prepare food for my family.  I didn’t want to do the budget and face the ugly reality of this depressed economy.  An avalanche of laundry threatened to bury us alive.  I even let my daily devotions and Bible study fall by the wayside.

That was my “Aha!” moment.

Without my daily centering on God everything else seemed to loom over me like a grand piano hanging by a piece of fishing line.  All I had to do was put God back at the beginning of my day and the center of my life and His hand would sweep me away from danger.  The responsibilities no longer felt like impending doom and those things I had no control over I let go of.

Control is a funny thing.  We go through life thinking we can plan and things will go according to that plan so long as we follow our “to do” lists.  Reality is not so clear cut.  After Caleb died Matt marveled at how we’d suddenly lost control.  That struck a chord with me.  I have always had such set ideas about certain events like birth and breastfeeding and on more than one occasion I have had to alter my plans.  But Caleb’s death really drove home the point that we were never in control.  We’ve all heard the saying “We plan.  God laughs .”  I doubt God is laughing at us and our many mistakes but it is true that nothing we say or do can derail His plan.  He is the master planner.              

Along these lines I have decided to wait on God for His plan in my life.  I recently shared my desires to minister to home schooling moms and a particular woman who has been in my prayers for the past 9 months.  Instead of jumping in with both feet I sat back and waited.  Through no effort on my part I am seeing positive change taking place.  I am still not certain of the role God has in mind for me but I am making myself available and looking for an opportunity to serve.                                        

Another aspect of my reality is an autistic son.  Ian is so intelligent but locked inside his own world, and he’s not relinquishing the keys.  He has let us into a few small rooms.  For instance Ian loves water.  Today he got out of the house and wound up in the creek below the park.  He wanted to swim “underwater”.  Along the way he took a detour by a neighbor’s house.  They called me and followed him down to the creek.  Even though these were the last people I wanted to interact with I am grateful that Ian was and is safe.                     

In an ideal world I would be able to plan my life and everything would go according to that plan.  That is a lot of responsibility.  I’d rather let go and let God.

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