Forgotten, But not Gone!

Well, I know my three readers must be awfully put out with me. If they are looking to this blog for internet entertainment lately, they have been sorely disappointed. I am sorry to have been AWOL so long, but duty calls from so many different places, I have been having trouble answering all the calls.

Spring is a hard time to get to stay on the computer very much around here. My four kids still at home continually have something pulling us in another direction, or chores call, or there is some special project awaiting, or someone needs visiting, etc. I made up my mind a month or so ago that I was not going to get frustrated by the amount of things that need doing, and just set to work doing the most important things first. I am trying to meet deadlines, so I just set priorities every day and try not to worry about tomorrow. It really helps to keep the stress levels down.

I always wondered when I was in high school why it had to be so difficult at that stage of life. In addition to having about 6 college-prep courses per year taught on a level harder than anything I came up against in college, I participated in drama, speech, volleyball, softball, honor guard, chorus, and some other assorted "after-school" activities. I used to have classes all day, go straight to athletic practice until dinner time, run home and eat dinner, and come back to the school for play practice or chorus until 10 at night. Then, I would go home and do homework til all hours, and get up at 6 to start all over again. Looking back, I know that only the vitality that comes with youth allowed me to accomplish so much. It is a little disheartening as you lose that vitality and cannot achieve as much in your days at 45 as you did when you were 16. I think, though, that the practical lesson I brought away from those days was that you are always stronger than you think you are, and you can do more than you think you can do. That lesson was hammered into my brain again when I found myself in my 30's a single parent of 3 active boys.

Sometimes you just have to reach down deep into your being and pull out the strength to do something that is neither fun nor emotionally stimulating. Laundry would be a good example, right Jen? It's hard to believe that doing history at 2 in the morning with your body battered and bruised from volleyball practice could prepare you to hold a vomiting child years later. The thing that those two activities have in common was that you have to be willing to sacrifice something very important to you (usually sleep) for another important goal to be met. Love is a huge motivating force--whether it be love for a sport early in life, or love for a person as you mature.

Now, 27 years later, as I prepare to see my second-born graduate, I understand some things that I did not when I was 18. Those teachers were driving us beyond the limits of human endurance at times to show us that it could be done. Students who went on to be doctors, lawyers, soldiers, mothers and fathers, and a host of other things have assuredly used those lessons to get through unimaginable challenges in their lives as well.

There are spiritual implications, too. We can always do more in the spiritual realm than we think we can. Sometimes when the Lord allows us to go into unimaginable spiritual battles, He, in His infinite wisdom, knows that we will come out the other side of life's battles stronger and more able to handle the next confrontation. The trying of our faith does indeed produce patience. I feel that patience growing, and for that, I am happy.

The washer and dryer will run today continually, and I will be going over math facts with a seven-year-old while I fold. I'll probably have a "wild card" thrown in there, as I did yesterday when the toddler exploded a whole bottle of soda on the dining room carpet. I have a biography to write, a bible class lesson to create, photo sessions to schedule, three cards to make and send, a yard sale to put together, people to call, kids to nurture, and a patient husband who awaits some "quality time" with me. Doubtless, all of it is not going to get done today. I just have to "forgive" myself tonight as I pillow my head, and resolve to do it all again tomorrow, hopefully a little better than I did today.