God is Driving

Oh, the irony! Earlier this morning I posted this on Face Book:

The longer I live, the more I recognize that I am in the passenger seat on this journey called life, and GOD is in the driver's seat. He sets the course, He leads the way, He shows me where He's taking me. It makes life a whole lot better when I live in light of this, and don't try to trade places with Him! :) (Take note - it doesn't come naturally! :) )

Now this has some more serious undertones, which I may write about in the near future, but it's funny to me how it even applies to my little daily tasks and plans. Take this week for instance. Every day so far this week, God has redirected my plans. Like this:

Monday: Laundry day! Go, go, go! Everything was going great until I decided to do a little trouble shooting on my own. See, there is some malfunction with our very old dryer. The buzzer goes off, but doesn't quit until you open the dryer door. This means one can't leave the house if the dryer is going. No big deal if one plans for it. One time when this happened, I just cleaned a bunch of lint out from below where the lint screen goes, and that seemed to fix the problem. So naturally, I decided to try that method again. Only this time, my fingers couldn't reach any lint, so I  used a duster handle to reach the lint, but couldn't pull it out. Instead, I shoved it down. Several times. Now the dryer doesn't like me, and rumbles and makes big noises when I try to run it. I still had two loads left to dry on Monday, so I couldn't finish the great laundry race with Becky and Jeana. WHICH...... allowed me to experience the fellowship and generosity of Jeana the next day when she let me use her dryer to finish the race.

Tuesday: I hung out with Jeana in the morning (while my clothes were drying!) and planned to do my grocery shopping in McMinnville between noon and 2:30 when I needed to be back to pick up kids from school. Instead, there was a major accident not far down the road that meant I couldn't get through to my usual grocery store. So instead, I came home and did a few other things, then did the "run the kids around" thing. Not getting my shopping done meant that I had to make an emergency run to Fred Meyer to fill in the needs for the next day. I went with Rosalie, while all the other kids were at various activities. It was fun to spend some alone time with her.

Wednesday: My original plan for Wednesday was to go for a walk with my friend Paula, then head to my friend Rhonda's house for lunch. But since I had missed Tuesday's major grocery run, I had to cancel my lunch with Rhonda in order to have enough time for shopping. (Grumble!) I did still go for a walk with Paula, and we had a great conversation in which I learned a lot about her kids' different college experiences. The information she shared was very insightful as we head into those waters with Cameron over the next couple of years. We also prayed together as we walked. Then I had a nice peaceful, unhurried shopping experience. I'm usually pretty rushed, but because I had prepared for a Tuesday shopping trip, my list was already made, and I had time to really think through my purchases and find some other fun things.

Thursday: My mind was going crazy just trying to wrap my brain around today's schedule! I was headed to my aunt's house to clean. When I was done there, I would need to hurry back in time to pick up Katie and her friend from school and drive them to the pool for water polo practice, then head to the elementary school, pick up Natalie and Rosalie and get Natalie to the pool for her water polo practice. Somewhere in there, I would be expecting a call from Cameron to pick him up from school, as he is staying after to make up a test. Then I would bring Cam and Rosie home for a bit. They have archery every other Thursday, so I would need to take them out in the country a ways for that at 4:30 and then run to the pool to pick up the other kids from water polo practice, which ends at..... 4:30. Good thing we are having left overs tonight, because at 7, we will need to be at the local coffee shop where Katie and her friend (and several others) will be performing a duet that they plan to play in the solo contest coming up this weekend. So. After rushing, rushing, rushing to get out the door early enough to get to my aunt's house on time, I notice that I don't have enough gas to get there and back, especially since there' s no time to stop for gas between her house and picking up kids. Sigh... there goes being on time....again. While waiting for my gas tank to fill, I call my aunt to tell her I'm running late. By some bless-ed divine-ness, we had our wires crossed, and she thought I was supposed to come next week while I thought I was coming today. Oh the relief! She said "Stay home and take time to be quiet before your crazy afternoon!" I can't exactly do that, but it does give me time to do some things I didn't know how to fit into this day. Like make GF bread so the kids can have a lunch tomorrow. And have several hours to clean the house in preparation for a party tomorrow afternoon, instead of rushing to do a less than mediocre job of it tomorrow while making cake and dinner, etc. And be quiet before the Lord. And write on my blog! And finish my budget plan, and do some banking. Ahhh. Thank you God, for redirecting, for driving.

It just makes me smile that what I was thinking about (about God steering and showing me His way for me to go) was so practically shown to me this week even in the little things of daily life.

(Oh, and I promise, my days are rarely as crazy as today was going to be!)