I went to bed Sunday night after doing battle with ants; ANT's, I say... The smallest black specs of ants I have ever seen. Traipsing side by side across my kitchen counter from the windowsill under my crock pot and they stop. They do not appear out the other side or up the side or in (somehow that last sentence conjures up the image of Dr. Seuss)... I lift up the crock pot to find, one-ONE-1 random Lucky Charm from Sunday morning breakfast. I spent the next two hours cleaning and bleaching and squishing! Ha!
6 am comes too fast. Hitting snooze as the small boy comes bounding in, "Sun's up mom, can I play Wii?" "Well of course you can't son..." that's my response these days... He always wants to play Wii and I am not so sure first thing in the morning is the time for that activity... When we need to get dressed and ready for school. When breakfast needs to be eaten, lunches packed and homework signed off and tucked away. Of course, you cannot play the Wii. And like every school day, it's a battle and he stomps off in not so silent protest.
UGH... I am not their friend... I have to remind myself. My job is to set boundaries and make sure they understand responsibility so they can grow up to be good little people who do amazing things.
"You need to start pouring your breakfast!" I call after him.
This little man comes back a few moments later... his brow furrowed. He says, "Mom, there are "guards" on the bananas." Naturally I say, "What?" He reply's, "Ya, Mom... there are, like, these tiny flying bugs guarding the bananas"
I have never heard of such a thing... so I get up, come out to find a banana split open at the top near the stem, which allowed a nice little home for some fruit flies. Yep... "guarding" the bananas... Ants and now this... You'd think my kitchen is dirty... its not... in fact these banana's were only purchased two days ago and are barely starting to ripen...
Monday night we were getting ready for dinner, waiting on some friends of ours to come over for dinner. Table was set, dinner was ready, candles lit and the hubbie was outside working on the fire pit with S'mores in our future. Peaceful.
The doorbell rings to my left and a small child calls from my right, 'Mooommm, the dog puked, he puked twice..." as the other small child races to the door and begins to call call through the security gate, "you guys can't come in, the dog puked all over." "Oh, my gosh", I think, "now the whole neighborhood knows the dog puked" as do our new friends. {insert horrific face here}
Most weeks don't start like this, for some reason this was just unreasonably bad. Thankfully it didn't stay that way.
Dinner ended on a high note, with the night air crisp enough to make the fire necessary and marshmallow roasting a blast.
There were moments this week which made me thankful, grateful for God's blessings. Like pumping gas... like connection with an old friend. Thankful for a misunderstanding with a new friend. Moments within the Bible that made me stop and re-read; sinking them into my heart and then in one fell swoop, an answer to a summer long prayer journey.
There are two groups of people in our life that have made life really hard. We have tried and tried to make things work or make things right. We have tried to understand. We have tried to go 'over and above' and when we couldn't try any more, we tried one more time. We tried until we gave up trying, at the point in both situations, when we knew nothing short of quite literally, "an act of God" would make it right.
This past summer our pastor did a series on prayer, at least I think I remember it that way. The sermon was based on watching God show up and show off in prayer. It is important for believers to actually watch and witness answers to prayers.
there is a person I cannot pray for anymore, for all those reasons stated above, right or wrong, I needed a break. To protect my heart, I was becoming bitter towards this person. I was right to be upset with her, but not right that I was sinning in my thought process, sinning in my actions.... I allowed my heart to change towards this person. So, I used this opportunity to write her name on a card along with two other people and I briefly gave an intro to the situation. The woman who is praying for "our" people is a godly woman, I know this, I have spent time with her and I love her dearly. It also so happens that I received her prayer card so we've exchanged praying for each others "people".
Over the past few months we've had phone calls and had prayer "status updates". For my person, the updates were small and seemingly meaningless until this week.
This week there was a mighty change. I dare be bold and confident in the change because a leopard seldom changes it's spots but I know... without a doubt we can become spotless within God...
I also know this is God at work because my "person" decided to visit a place my prayer person frequents. As if God is saying, I am indirectly bringing them in contact with each other. And I am not talking about your neighborhood, Starbucks on every corner place... this is a place that would obviously put me at ease, that would speak to the both of us. God specifically saying, "See what I just did right there?!?"
The results of prayer are new, I remain cautiously optimistic in this space and I know my prayer partner remains in prayer for my person.
The second situation is my moms prayer for some family members. We had a massive falling out over the summer... it was just bad news bears. In a situation similar to the first, except in this one - I think we were all wrong but caught up in the emotion of it all. Eventually we retreated to our own corners of the ring, some were more silent than others, others were more vocally self-righteous and indignant.
Pardon me a moment...
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King's horses, And all the King's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again!
That's what it felt like... a great fall... a fall which caused a break so wide nothing could put it together again. Nothing except for the power for prayer and God's divine handiwork. I am not sure who my mother's prayer person is, who is praying for this situation but I can say it's slowly changing.
We're all, in our own corners hearing sermons, or having conversations with others that bring us back around to each other. Slowly. We're each individually and independently working on what's broken. We each have God who is quietly putting pieces of this egg back together. Broken and spilled out... there's no going back to who we were before that. I do think though, we will be better than before. I believe that is God's plan.
In any event. I am learning not to count myself out. Not to give up and say never again. I am learning time and again that God's ways are truly not my ways and oh, how grateful I am for that.
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