How Big Is Your God?

You know, it's hard sometimes to hit those points in life where it feels like every where you look, go and see, you are surrounded by leaves. And I'm not talking about Autumn or literally as in "tree leaves" but figuratively speaking, of course. (I am waxing quite poetic here... bear with me.)

The truth is, they are actually more real and more life impacting than the maple leaves laying in my backyard tonight that should be raked and stuffed into a scare crow sometime tomorrow since the weather is supposed to be nice.

Despite trying to ignore these leaves, I feel like each one is being turned over and a new side is showing. Some turn with grief. Others with practical change. Still others with joy.

Yet in the past few months, I have been so amazed at the ways God has answered prayers. Prayers I never thought could ever have answers. It's almost as if I hope to pray about something but don't know how to really ask God or tell God or convey to God any of what I'm thinking, and then He hears my heart and then answers... as in, literally answering an impossible prayer!

Even down to the exact words. Like tonight I was thinking about a situation Toby and I are facing. "Lord, I really want to get in touch with my husband," I prayed honestly in desperation. (If you think I'm honest and open on my blog, I'm even more honest and open with God. If you don't believe me, just ask God.) Not 20 minutes later, my husband came to me and through the course of conversation said, "Honey, we just really need to get in touch again." (deja vu anyone?) And not only did he say it but he laid out a practical way to actually make that idea more than just a "oh that's a nice thing to say to your spouse" kind of thing.

The first plan of action? We set a coffee date. And coffee dates always makes us both talk, not just the one of us.

Dealing with parenting 3 toddlers and running a business that often keeps Toby gone 14 hours a day and then feeling the need to have friends and socialize on top of the effort we as a couple make to keep our marriage strong, is a juggling act more complicated than any circus act you'll see.

(Even writing that is complicated: I just spent 10 minutes trying to figure out how to word the above paragraph so it wouldn't look entirely confusing and then I'd be admitted to a mental institution because of the concern of my dear readers here that you'd have to spend the next 10 minutes trying to figure out what I meant by describing a 4 piece juggling act called 'my life.')

Okay, if that doesn't make sense, you are now qualified expected to move on to the next paragraph, please.

Knowing that the God who ordained the universe in a set motion and plan that was meant to incorporate even the craziest of my days, is an awesome comprehension... especially when your prayers are answered, your storms are ceased and your anxiety melts to peace.

And that same God who controls the universe, sees fit to lay on your husband's heart a prayer you just prayed not an hour before, all makes you wonder if you really know how big your God is.

It could all end right there and I'd still be impressed. But it's just like God to compile the most ironic bonus package when I least expect it, and He followed the prayer up by an unexpected early morning coffee date all uninfluenced by me.

No wonder I can't sleep tonight.

An Everything-Went-Wrong-Day

Okay. I'll admit right now that today was just a bad day all around. I am not going to make this sound fluffy, fun and frivolous so don't expect a frilly story. It was just one of those days where nothing went right and everything went wrong.

I woke up with a raging bladder infection and peed about 37 times from 8am until 11am. (I'm not kidding you.) That was a good sign my day was starting out bad.

Toby needed me to bring him some window cleaning supplies so I planned on taking a break from the bathroom trips and looked forward to having lunch with him over his lunch break. The kids looked forward to that a lot too and Landon and Janae figured out where we'd eat ('Caffeine's' (Cafe) on the Square) and what they were going to order (pancakes). I didn't care what I ate; I just needed a distraction.

No matter how hard I tried to get ready, I was in so much pain from the infection. My doctor called in a prescription and I kept calling the pharmacy to see if it was in yet. At 10:30, it was finally time to go for lunch so I headed out to the van with the kids.

It was then I realized that I had no car seat for Landon; the car seat was in a work truck with Toby.

So, I called our nearest relative to see if they had their extra car seat handy and while waiting for them to get back to me, I continued getting the kids in the car.

I went to start the van and what should I find but the battery was dead. Totally dead. Not even the power locks would work.

By then, the Car seat Relatives got back to me and told me that someone else was using their extra car seat.

Okay. So, I was still out a car seat and now a battery too.

Not only did Toby need his stuff and the kids had their hearts set on going to have lunch with Daddy, but I needed my meds! The UTI was almost killing me.

So, I called a neighbor to see if I could borrow their car for a jump start. No answer; they weren't home.

I called a nearby friend to see if I could borrow their car for a jump start. She said she'd be right over.

I called another nearby friend and asked if I could borrow a car seat from them. They had extra! I was in luck!

The Battery Lady came over and as I bravely wielded the mighty jump start cables, she popped the hood on her car. There was a loud snap and unfortunately, the snap wasn't the hood popping; the whole lever from inside the car broke off. Just a dinky little wire teased us with it's past ability to pop the hood while the plastic handle sat helplessly in my friend's hand.

By now, the neighbor guy was outside mowing and I decided to see if there was something on his truck I could break in the process of getting juice into our van's battery. He obliged his truck and in no time, the van was running strongly and no harm done to his truck.

I re-loaded the kids and ran up the street to get the car seat. I stopped at the pharmacy to pick up my meds and we were finally on our way to go get our dad.

When I finally found Toby, he was on the phone, quite distracted, in the bank parking lot. He thrust me a form to fill out for my new Debit card and I proceeded to fill it out, not knowing if I was the Applicant or the Co-applicant of the Applicant. While waiting for him to get off the phone, the kids and I sat in the van until the "empty" light came on for our gas gauge. Knowing I had at least 80 miles until I was really empty, I didn't worry too bad but I knew that this was just another Bad Luck Token for my day.

Toby got off the phone and told me he needed awhile to work up an immediate bid for someone. So, with my on-empty-van, the kids and I drove around Seward. After about 45 minutes, Toby was ready to go but I needed to bring my form into the bank and pick out a PIN number.

While "picking out" my PIN number, the bank lady had to hassle with our account because Toby's debit card had quit working, making my card more of a hassle to get. Finally, after making a couple trips into the bank, it got worked out and we were headed to the restaurant. By now it was 1:00pm.

We went to "Caffeine's" and found out they had a long wait. The restaurant was packed. So, we skipped down the sidewalk and went to another place instead. We ate very quickly since Toby needed to get back to work and most of our food went home with us in "boxes."

I dropped Toby off for work and headed back home where a lawn waited to be mowed and a ton of work had to be done before company. About 2 miles out of Seward, Toby called me and said that he forgot to take the window cleaning stuff out of the van.

I u-turned and headed back into town and pulled up to his truck just as he held up the supplies he needed from some hidden place in the truck: my supplies for him were useless; he already had everything he needed and didn't know that until then. Lovely. He did keep the roll of paper towels I brought him but probably just because he wanted me to feel at least partly useful.

We then went home and I mazed through a littered house, put Alex to bed and brought the other kids outside to work on the yard with me. The meds had kicked in by then and I hadn't experienced any Bad Luck Tokens for about 15 minutes so I thought it was time to get on with life.

To celebrate, I made reservations for our upcoming Mother's Day Weekend Get-A-Way and know that after today and all that happened, that weekend get-a-way will be more worth it than if I hadn't had today.

Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there and may you find less reasons than I do to celebrate and enjoy Mother's Day this year. :)

It's a BOY!

And we're already half way through.