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Finding Blessings in Chaos

I have been told my life should be a sitcom.  Maybe a reality TV show.  Things tend to happen to me that don’t typically happen to other people, or so I have been told…repeatedly.  After the past couple of weeks, a friend asked me “Teri, did you walk underneath a ladder, carrying a black cat, while breaking a mirror on Friday the 13th?”  Um, not that I am aware of, but I get why she asked.

Summer is my favorite time of year to just have fun and make memories with my girls. So far, memories are for sure being made, but fun probably isn’t how any of us would describe it.

Our first weekend of summer was set to be a beach day.  My hubby was taking care of unpacking the van, as I attempted to wrestle our feisty 1 year old into her swim gear.  Then, beeping of the back hatch as it closes, followed by screaming.  Somehow my 3-year-old ran right into it as it was closing and split her head open.  How it happened?  No one could tell you.  So instead of a beach trip, we took one to the ER. 

A few days later I noticed little black dots, that were moving in my girls’ room.  Bugs don’t really bother me but in my house is a different story.

So, lets briefly rewind.  Buying a house in the city, I assumed my interactions with wild life would be limited.  However, this has proved otherwise.  In the 4 years we have lived here there have been deer, a skunk living under our porch, chipmunks building homes in our siding, carpenter bees doing what carpenter bees do, some squirrels that wanted to live in our attic, carpenter ants and…now…birds.  These lovable winged creatures built a nest in our soffit.  And apparently, birds can have mites.  These tiny little bugs can migrate, into your home.  According to the google machine, this is relatively common.  However, common or not, I am not okay with cohabiting with bugs. 

This resulted in a blur of compulsive cleaning and doing laundry, spraying bugs with natural, homemade mite killer and waiting for the exterminator to come.  Meanwhile, my husband became a combination between Steve Irwin and Bob Villa as he chased down and caught birds in our attic with our daughter’s fishing net and his hat.  And then had to rebuild the parts of our house that was damaged. 

After working around the clock for days, I decided that it was time to get out of the house with the girls.  Go get ice cream and go for a walk at the beach.  As I go to pull out of the driveway my van dies.  All 3 girls, and myself, started to cry.  And said van had to be towed. 

Over the course of a few days I was glutened. Someone backed into me at a red light.  Yes, backed, 6 plus feet, down the hill, into my van and then proceeded to yell at me.  My toddler flung the lotion she was trying to eat and it hit me in the side of the nose, perfectly, resulting in a lump and a tiny laceration.  My hubby decided he would bring me some flowers to cheer me up.  As I was holding them, a bug crawled out and bit me.  Seriously, I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.

In these moments, when it feels like the mountain is getting higher and you are about to break, I find myself starting to question God.  I find myself reviewing my laundry list of good deeds and explaining why I don’t deserve this, like God doesn’t already know everything about me. 

This, this is when I need to stop, take a breath, and be still.  It’s often too easy to lose your focus.  My initial reaction was that of sheer defeat.  But when I choose to be still, I can see how God is working everything for good.

Yes, the bugs, the birds, the home repairs are not what I wanted to be dealing with.  But, thankfully God let me discover them when I did, we were able to prevent an infestation and my kids never got a single bite.  My girls enjoyed having sleepovers in the family room with mommy.  To them, it was awesome.  We didn’t have to replace any beds. We saw God’s love demonstrated through friends and family who stepped up to help.

My van breaking down while Jay’s car was at the mechanic was not ideal.  But, it happened in my driveway.  It could have been so much worse. This could have happened when I was out somewhere, with all 3 girls, by myself.  We were safe. 

Emeilia’s injury could have been severe, but she is only left with a small scar that is hidden by her hair.

If we allow ourselves to get completely wrapped up in our struggles, we miss the good God brings out of those struggles.  So as challenging as life has been recently, I need to look at God, say thank you for where he has provided and be hopeful for where he is leading us.  By the grace of God, we are never alone. We will climb these mountains.  Be still and watch His hand move us along. 

I am more at peace now. The bugs and birds are gone. However, I may still be open to that reality TV show for whatever may be around the corner.

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