Recently I was in the middle of chaos- literally. I looked around and my house was overrun by 5 indoor, rescue animals and 4, college-aged children (including extra friends) on holiday break. I couldn’t decide what drove me more crazy, the animals or the people. I finally decided it was the people because the animals didn’t argue and could be put outside.
Around the same time, our family attended our daughter’s college graduation out of town, completed an 11 hour family road trip in a van (mostly peaceful) and had Christmas (also mostly peaceful). Unfortunately, I also got really sick. This contributed to my bleak outlook.
I felt everything going awry and prayed, “Lord, this is too much. I just can’t do anymore.” Then I found out a friend’s child had a complicated surgery and a close, older friend fell and dislocated her shoulder. It seemed things were going from bad to worse. I kept doing my devotionals, however, and felt a message forming. It said to quit looking AROUND at circumstances and instead to LOOK UP to HIM for peace. I was accustomed to circumstances dictating my emotional state. I knew emotions were a terrible barometer, but was nonetheless bombarded by them. I kept telling myself, “It’s only a holiday break, I can do it.” But when week 3 of the holidays became week 5, I started begging God for relief. Instead, a son decided to have oral surgery and another son invited guests over for a football party but wasn’t even home. That’s when my hinges came unglued.
The saying goes, “If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” Some sage was spot on with that statement. That night, I cried to my husband that being in my home made me miserable. I couldn’t clean up, pick up, or put up with one more minute of disrespect. It didn’t help that on New Year’s my sons and friends decided to light fireworks on our deck leaving scorched marks and burned holes into cushion seats. It was time for this holiday to end!
Clinging to fragile hope and force disciplining myself to read the Bible kept me from storming off. I felt like God was saying, “Stop looking around at circumstances. You know they will change. You have to have HOPE in ME and not in how things appear.” The reason I felt the message so clearly was because it came at me from multiple sources. (When repetitious messages come, I have learned to listen.)
Our sons are all back to their respective schools and we got our daughter off to her first post college job. We are down one animal and I can keep the cat out. It’s quiet. It’s peaceful. It’s more tidy. I feel more sane. In this quiet moment I am still reminding myself to look up and not around.
Fourundertwo 