Intervention

Remember a couple of months ago, when I mentioned that I always feel a bit of an emotional let-down when I get home from being gone for several hours and no one has called (or at least left a message) while I've been gone? Well, on Monday, when I really needed it, a good friend called while I was out of the house. Now that's what I call divine intervention. Her message was like a ray of sunshine piercing through the storm clouds that had been gathering in my head. There is no way I would have thought to call her on my own, but the brief chat we shared did wonders for my attitude and provided a much needed infusion of patience.

The kids were driving me batty. Now that I've had a chance to think about it, I realize that the reason they were driving me batty was because I had been cooped up in our house for 7 full days, out of 12, with these children, all by my lonesome, with the only breaks (when they finally went to bed) being filled with cleaning up the messes that are inevitable when you have 3 (or sometimes 4) children under the age of 9 hanging out. For an additional 3 nights, I had been feeding them, helping them with homework, playing with them, reading to them, and putting them to bed all by myself, with no adult interaction other than waving at the bus driver (in case you're not doing the math yourself, that means only 2 "normal" days in that 12 day period). For most of this time, it had been too cold to play outside, so "Mama, I'm bored," had become a constant refrain. I had also been hearing quite a bit of, "but I don't wanna," when I asked them to do something helpful, like bringing their dirty laundry upstairs to be washed. At the moment I listened to that message, my well of patience and good-will and loving feelings had run dry, the last of it running out along with my tears on the half hour drive home.

Normally, this friend will call me on a Tuesday or a Thursday--that just works best with her schedule. But on Monday she heard God's gentle whisper (call Tera) and acted on it. My friend provided a life line to me that day. She was God's way of putting his arms around me and telling me that he loves me, and that everything was OK. She was God's way of giving me back my perspective, which had narrowed considerably in the previous 12 days. I have a bookmark that reads: "Friendship is God's way of telling us we don't have to walk alone." That has never been more true for me than that day. Thank you, friend. What a blessing you are to me...