Day 2: Friction

It has been a long week and I am exhausted. I invited Ulrich to join me as I picked up the kids from pre-school so we could treat ourselves to some In-and-Out Drive-Through. As I dropped him back off at work I could see that tired, "I can't do another day of this" look on his face and I asked him if he was ok. All he wanted was an evening off.

I decided to focus my efforts of the afternoon towards making the evening frictionless. The kids were not cooperating about taking a nap so we took a long walk to the grocery store and stopped at McDonald's on the way back for an ice-cream cone and some play time. The afternoon was beautiful. The weather nice and I had bought a delicious tri-tip and asperagus for dinner. We came home and I set to work to get the evening ready. Eddie helped cook dinner and Andrew, who had fallen asleep in the stroller woke up hungry so I fed him yogurt on the kitchen floor. Things seemed hitchless. 

My evening plans involved a nice dinner together, baking cookies, watching a family movie and getting the kids to bed a bit on the early side. It was a plan that both kids and parents could get behind and usually nights like that feel fairly effortless.

But, for whatever reason, the boys decided to insert friction. Eddie pulled Ulrich's work laptop down from the shelf and broke the screen. He then continued a streak of abnormal bad behavior pushing against me. Testing my authority. Andrew keyed in and joined the movement, refusing to eat and throwing tantrums before and after bath.

I can only think that there are times that God has in store such beautiful plans for us but we thrash them with our own insistence to be in control. Unable to see the plan that I had laid out for the night, Eddie could only see me working to get dinner ready. He didn't know about the cookies or the movie or the night time snuggles that I had planned out. Lent is my best effort at setting aside my tantrums, my insistence on doing things on my schedule, according to my will and listen for the plan that God has laid out. I wish I could say that I never acted like a toddler before God but I am fairly certain that I do. Luckily, like a loving mother -- God takes my tantrums and disciplines me, puts me to bed and wakes up with hugs and smiles the next day. I delay the plans the Spirit has set out for me but I don't abandon them. 

In these days, I will try to listen and obey allowing my spirit to be molded that I may wear a yoke that is light.