Bring it on!

It seems to be feast or famine in all aspects of life. Having teenagers, I am used to having busy days. I have adjusted. Now that one of them drives, it has taken a bit of pressure off of me and I have been able to semi-retire my Taxi Driver title.   However, I have filled that space with some of my own interests and, of course, my husband always has something going with his duties as a pastor.

Things can go smoothly with only a couple activities a day: school in the morning, Bible class for the kids in town at noon, practice at 3:00 and church function at 7:00. That has actually become the famine part of our schedule. It is pretty easy going, having time in between each scheduled stop. We try to fly under the radar, but then all of a sudden Life sees us and laughs.  She lies in wait for us to get comfortable with how things are going and then turns it up a notch.

We have had a couple of incidents recently that have made us shake our heads and say, "What...how...?" My husband had been invited to be the best man in a friend's wedding. He had not seen this man since high school. We were very excited to go and had resolved that it would just be the two of us going. Our youngest boy always seems to get the short end of the stick when it comes to planning our vacations around his sports schedule. He usually has to miss practices which means he can't play in games right away. That was our first dilemma. We didn't want to do that to him again. Where would our boys stay? With our older teen being close to 18, we decided they could stay home, the older could take the younger to his practices and games, they would be home to take care of the animals, we would have people from the church check in on them; it was a win/win. I talked my mama heart into being okay with that. I was looking forward to a road trip with my husband!

As I was taking my son to the doctor one day and running our trip through my mind, I exclaimed, "Oh no!" My son asked what was wrong. "My women's retreat is the same weekend as the wedding! Oh well, I will cancel the retreat." It was one that I had not attended before and was anxious to go, but decided I would bow out and not tell my husband as I didn't want him feeling badly about it.

That same afternoon, he said, "When is your retreat?"  I laughed and told him that I realized it was on the same day as the wedding but assured him it was no big deal and I could go next year.  Problem solved, trip still on.

Two days later, I was crawling into bed and looking over our calendar. A gasp escaped my lips. My husband asked what was wrong. "Chris (our 17 year old) will be on his Mexico mission trip that same week we are leaving." Now, I didn't want to sway my husband's decision, but my mama heart went into total panic mode! I could not possibly go to Wyoming while one of my son's was out of the country and another home in Idaho with someone who would have to alter their schedule to run him all over! I couldn't do it! So I prayed.  I did not want to show my husband how torn I was about this. I did not want to tell him I didn't want to go. I certainly didn't want him missing his friend's wedding. I know my God and I also know He can be the God of the last minute. I begged Him not to let me wait til the last minute to hear how He was going to fix this glitch.

The very next day, my husband says, "I think I'm going to have to call my buddy and let him know that we won't be coming to the wedding." Thank you, Jesus! We discussed how we could still get him there, but he does not like to travel without me and it was discussed with his friend and all was good.

Things were calm again and Life got busy meddling in the plans of others, but she must have just went around the block. I pulled out my calendar to mark down some schedules the boys had handed me. Why was it that everything was saying March 19th? That couldn't be right. "Oh, yes it could!" Life said. My husband leaves the 18th for his men's retreat and won't be home until the night of the 19th. I have a writing conference that I am helping to facilitate the 19th which has been scheduled for months.  Thank goodness my 17 year old can drive because our youngest has a baseball invitational in another town that day. Oh, but wait, of course that's not all. That is also the night of prom.

So you know what I did? I laughed in Life's face. "Ha! I've got this! This ain't my first rodeo!" I assured Chris that his dad and I would both be home early evening and that Eli's game was supposed to be over by four and that while his brother was at the game, he could run down the road and get his flowers for his prom date and since his dance didn't start until 9:00 p.m., he would still have time to come home and clean up and take his date to dinner at 7:00. Booyah!

Life knew she had been beat. She hung her head and slowly walked down the road, but with a renewed energy, straightened and looked over her shoulder and said with a smirk on her face (and NOT in a Arnold Schwarzenegger accent), "I'll be back."

I confidently responded with, "I know and I'll be here. Bring it on!"

Yes, life will throw those little scheduling glitches into the mix, just to keep you on your toes and keep things interesting. Don't lose heart, just get into your fighting stance!