Opposition in All Things

Whew, I feel wrung out. Those who are a bit familiar with the ongoing dramas in our life might think that every now and again I'd look at what we've been through recently and think Wow, how did we get through that? It'd only make sense. Except what I really do is look back on the past month or so and think, Ha! I thought that challenge was hard!

I was having that thought just a few days ago and remarked to someone that whenever I read my journal, I have to laugh at what I thought was a rough patch, 'cause this, now this that I'm going through is tough. Ha! Fortunately, the blessings are compensatory.

Let me tell you about my week. Sunday morning I got up to get breakfast for the kids and noticed that there was water leaking from our freezer. OK, not a good sign. I pulled open the fridge and discovered that someone (probably under 5 feet tall) had turned the controls all the way to zero-- that is, turned our fridge and freezer off. I investigated further and realized that it had probably been done the night before. And there we were, a week's worth of groceries, gone just like that: POOF. Remember last year when I was bummed about having the milk go bad a couple days before we could get more? Ha! And last year, we could afford to replace a gallon of milk.

But in opposition to this trial, our lovely church leaders got together and bought us all new food, even more than we'd had before. But wait, there's more!

This morning, Punkin Boy was complaining of a pain in his leg and cried when he tried to walk. The Man (TM) had woken up late and had 15 minutes to get everyone out the door to school. After he left, I was worrying about how I would get Punkin Boy to the doctor if his leg got any worse, when a sweet sister from church called up and asked if it would be OK if she and a couple of others came over and cleaned my house for me. I asked if she'd be able to drive us to the doctor-- of course, she said. My house is now cleaner than it's been in 2 years. I feel so good about that, and Punkin Boy was up running around by lunchtime. Whew.

Now we've got this other thing. In today's mail, we got an overdraft notice; TM's credit card payment came from an account that couldn't afford it. The bank is in another state, so even if we had any money, we couldn't get it there quickly. Once again, I'm having to look for a miracle. But I think I've figured out the lesson I'm supposed to be learning from this particular phase of my mortal experience: Don't put my trust in the arm of flesh. Just when you think you know it all...