Embrace the Circus

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.
Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:4-9

It's been a rough couple of weeks for our little circus. Nothing catastrophic -- just a long series of annoyances and aggravations. It started with daylight savings time. First Madeline, who normally wakes a little before five, was waking a little before four. And then somehow, when Madeline's sleeping got a bit sorted out, Kathleen wound up miserably over-tired and started skipping her naps, even though she desperately needed them. Since no one was getting the sleep they needed, everyone got sick, and we've been dealing with runny noses and fevers and general unhappiness since then. The long days of studying for Daddy and the long nights with unhappy babes have been peppered with other headaches, too: being rear-ended at a shop (no one got hurt, though, and there really wasn't much damage), a cell phone dropped in the bath tub (which made a miraculous recovery), the death of yet another camera, countless broken dishes, spilled anything and everything (carrot soup, coffee, what hasn't stained our carpet this month?), an un-fixable steam cleaner, shot records lost just before the doctor's appointment... the trivial list could go on and on.

And as petty as the above list is, it can seem all-consuming when you're in the midst of it. And so, these past few weeks, the challenge for me has been to remember what is real, what is true, what is greater than the mundane of details of days that don't go well.

God is sovereign.
God is good.
God is faithful.
God is gracious beyond measure, even to me.

Even when all the petty annoyances seem to indicate the contrary.

And so, these past weeks I've tried to do as God commanded his people in Deuteronomy -- to set His truth and His word before me. I've tried to keep his truths in my heart, to talk about them with the girls. I've tried to remember that He and His love are greater than my circumstances.

And in doing this, I've found myself looking at my own life differently. Not always, not perfectly, but more often I find myself, even in the midst of the chaos and the headaches, seeing His graciousness to me. I've found gratitude, where normally there's only griping. I've found myself grateful in our very messy, less-than-perfect days. Grateful for:

::: The chaotic jumble of toys -- not a condemnation of my housekeeping, but evidence of an afternoon well-played.
::: The miracle of a sick child consoled only in her mama's arms. (You've made me think, Paula, that we'd be surrounded by miracles if we only had the eyes to see them. )
::: The never-thawed supper meat -- an excuse for a treat dinner of blueberry pancakes. Sweet bites and sweet smiles from happy girls.
::: The sweet, unprompted words on a harried, hectic, less-than-patient day -- "You're such good mama, Mama."

And so, I remember. Again.

God is sovereign.
God is good.
God is faithful.
God is gracious beyond measure, even to me.

Even to me.