Mama Told Me There Would Be Days Like This (sing it with me!)

Tuesday evenings are "me" time. Troy leads a group in the city every Tuesday evening and once I get the kids in bed, it's time that I can do whatever I want! If things go as planned, a Tuesday evening might include home-made sushi and a movie :)

Let me tell you, today is not going to be one of those Tuesdays!

It's been a crazy day. In between staff meeting, a haircut (OK, that was a nice spot) doing some follow up work from our team launch, and doing the afternoon school run, I have been to the bank twice to try and make a deposit. Tomorrow is the 1st and that means all sorts of bills are going to be pouring into my Spanish bank account. And how much is in there. Um, around 8 euro I think. Both times the ATM was unable to help me due to some random reason. The second time I had about a 15 minute window before I had to be home so Troy could take the car to catch the train to be at his meeting. Hmmm. So now the plan is to get up at 7 tomorrow morning and buzz to the bank BEFORE the bank day starts. OK, not the best plan but workable.

But the day gets more interesting!

At dinner with my charming children, my son upchucked all over the bench. That made my leek soup seem fairly unappealing. I set Meg to doing her homework and put Nic in the bath. Did I mention that I am also hosting a baby shower tomorrow morning for the Mom's & Toddlers group and that my house will be overrun with small children? In the midst of all this, there are phones ringing all over the house. If I am in the kitchen, it's the land-line and of course I do not have the cordless with me. When I go down to the office, it's my mobile phone that I left in the kitchen. (I've gotten smarter now. I have both phones within reach!) My husband calls to cheerily remind me that tomorrow is the first and it's my turn to send out our email update.

It's only 6:30 but Nic says he is ready for bed after his extremely short bath. This is not a good sign. I get him dried and in pajamas. The moment we are done with prayers and the ever important saying of the bedtime rules, he does it again. With great force and volume. In a moment of utter motherly abandonment, I have to step in the hall to wait for him to finish (I am a sympathetic puker!) What kind of a mother am I? So I run another bath and collect the piles of nasty laundry. A few stray items get dropped on the way downstairs, but I make it finally with no gagging.

In the meantime, the phones are still ringing and my daughter is shouting for help with her homework. Math homework, which is not my department. Thankfully it's fractions, so I manage. In a couple of years she'll be in trouble with my math help.

I clean up and remake Nic's bed and get him dressed again. This time I dose him with some anti-nausea medicine (so far it's working and he's nicely asleep.) Meg has her bath and while she's in there I check her homework and find she has done a couple of them wrong. So after the bath and the pajamas and the complaints that her ""electric toothbrush is not charged, Mom!" (again, what kind of mother am I?) we fix the homework and she goes to bed.

The kitchen floor is now mopped and now I just have to go upstairs and tidy up the chaotic playroom so that all the kids can trash it again tomorrow. And send out the email about the follow-up work we did earlier because it is due at the end of the month!

Guess what? My husband just called. Only one person showed up to group so he is on his way home! So much for "me" Tuesday. I think I'll go to the bank again and let him tidy up the toys!

:)

Movie Metaphors

Sometimes I feel like my life is one big movie metaphor. Do you know what I mean? I've been looking at my life in the framework of a couple of movies lately. OK, I might be the only wacky one out here that thinks this way, but bear with me.

One of the movies that has seemed to frame my life lately is the third movie from the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, "The Return of the King." It has felt a bit like the scene where the "good guys," led by Aragorn are standing in front of the black gate of the enemy. In response to their challenge, the gate opens and the horrible army of nasty creatures pours out and completely surrounds them. For a few moments they are just standing there, a much smaller circle of good within a huge mass of evil. Frightening.

Do you ever feel that? It seems like more and more we are surrounded by enemies and by plain old bad things. Church planting puts us all right in the thick of the battle. Satan surrounds us with his ugly army and bombards us with his worst (including really bad exchange rates, stress, team struggles, worries about our kids, etc.) You know the drill. You can write your own list!

But the good news for us is that we already know how this "movie" ends! We already know that good triumphs over that evil army. Thank God that we know we are on His winning side. That gives me lots of hope!

We recently watched this movie again with my Dad when he was visiting, and something else struck me. Towards the end of the movie, Bilbo asks Frodo if he still has the ring. When Frodo says no, Bilbo sighs that he "would have liked to hold it just one last time" or something along those lines. That line really smacked me in the face this time for some reason. How much like Bilbo I am, wanting to hold on to the things I should be letting go of. It's like I hold onto my sins, wanting to "hold them one more time before letting go." Hmmmm.

Hang in there, I'm almost done with my movie ranting :) Here's the other movie that fits my life right now: Spiderman 2. It just hit DVD, so I won't ruin the plot in case you still want to see it. But awhile back when Troy was having a really bad day, a friend of ours told him to watch Spiderman 2 because it was really good for "missionaries struggling to stay in Spain." HUH? Go figure. But we watched it last night and I could see his point. Themes of not giving up, doing the right thing, making sacrifices. After you watch it, let me know what you think!

Reading over this, it seems pretty lame :) but take it for what it's worth!

Hugs to all of you,
Heather

God's Kiss

I woke on Thursday morning with a start. I could tell by the heavy darkness in the room that it was still early. Outside, the rain that seems to have been around for weeks now drip, drip, dripped its way into my consciousness. The weight of it pressed against me like a cold wet hand. It was not a morning where I could huddle deep in my warm bed and listen peacefully to the rain. Instead, each drop fell splashing into my stress, raising the level of it one drop at a time until it threatened to overflow completely. Worries about money, school, church, the many details on my to-do list, grieving over losses and impending losses, uncertainty, and (oh yes!) PMS swirled around me in the darkness. And outside, the pouring rain emptied on my world. I thought wryly of the prayer that I had written to God in our church's week-long prayer room. Something about wanting to stand in the downpour of His love and be completely drenched and overwhelmed with it. "Is this love Lord? It feels more like misery to me." I stayed in the dark and grumbled to Him.

Two small beams of light shone into my darkness as our kids wandered into our room and cuddled into bed with us. For awhile I gave up my sulking and took comfort in small voices and soft hands holding mine. Eventually we managed to get out of bed and start the day together. While we ate breakfast and brushed teeth and got backpacks and jackets and boots, the rain poured down, a constant nagging background track to life.

After school trips and coffee with a seeking friend (I put on a mostly cheerful face after admitting the "rain" was getting me down.) I hibernated at home. Being our day off, it meant I could keep the shades down, read a book, blow off a couple of errands I had planned to do and nurse my misery comfortably. I did this successfully ALL day.

Then it was time to pick up Meaghan from school. I went outside to the car and was greeted with blinding sunshine so bright it almost set me back on my heels. The sky was beautiful Madrid blue, the blue that comes from high altitudes. Only a few peaceful puffy clouds lingered in the sky that only hours before hung an inch above my head and dumped its full store of water on me. On the highway, starting up the hills towards school, the sun burned in my car window and branded my face. It was so warm and so concentrated that it burned into my very soul. I felt His kiss on my cheek and I heard His voice whispering to me "I SEE you. I feel your hurt, your stress, your worry. I hear your cry for relief. I pulled back the clouds and give you sun (and SON) so you will know this. I SEE YOU."