Lessons Learned

Today was a good, good day. I needed a good day. Yesterday I called my mom and told her that if she wished to continue to have the same number of grandchildren, she should probably come pick up the youngest one and keep him at her house for a while. She didn’t buy it. She was right—I didn’t give him away, although I had moments of wanting to offer him up to my Facebook friends. But I did endure a long, hard day with a boy who is VERY two.

So I was glad for a good day. A visit with a dear, dear friend who I don’t see nearly enough. Some quality time with my kids. A dinner meeting with another friend to chat over women’s ministry stuff for church. A trip to Target all by myself. And as I drove home tonight and reflected over the events of the day, I realized that I learned a few things along the way…

1 – Getting up at 5 AM is not my idea of fun, but it really does make my day go much more smoothly when I can get things done before my kids are up.

2 – When I mix an adrenaline rush with caffeine, it makes me shiver. And gabby. I talked a LOT at dinner tonight. A lot a lot a lot.

3 – Target is open later than Michael’s and Pat Catan’s. So if you happen to need things from a craft store and Target, especially if you live 30 minutes from these particular stores, go to the one with the later closing time LAST.

4 – Remember in school when teachers would say, “If you have a question, ask it. Chances are someone else has the same question.” That still holds true. So often we keep our thoughts, feelings, struggles to ourselves, certain that we are alone in them. We aren’t. If you are feeling something, chances are the mom next to you is, too.

5 – Your closest friends, those you see and talk to and interact with regularly, aren’t always your kindred spirits. Sometimes your kindred spirit is the friend who you don’t see nearly enough, whose voice you rarely hear over the phone, whose life you observe on Facebook. Sometimes that friend is the one you can see every couple of years and yet pick up like you just came back from getting a cup of coffee.

6 – God really does have a plan, and He really does know exactly what we need and why we were created. (He’s the one who created us, after all.) If we just trust Him to lead the way and bring it all together in His time, He’ll be faithful. Life is so much easier if we hand over control to Him and go along for the ride.