And the Mad Woman Threw the Stick to Stop the Bus...

Fantasy of a Princess... To take your mind off the nightmare my children had.


I'm not even sure how to start this post. Naming it wasn't so hard. But where do I start that doesn't drag you through the blah blah blah of another day in the life type thing? Oh well...

My kids attend a public school. They ride the bus to and from school to include my youngest, Mathew, who is 3-years-old. Yesterday our regular bus driver took a sick day as he has been fighting a nasty cough for weeks now. When the bus came yesterday morning it was a lady bus driver substitute. She was actually two minutes early. When I approached I reminded her that as a sub she was expected to be late, not early. Big smile... good laugh between us and a compliment slipped in sideways. :o)

Yesterday was Wednesday. My son, Elijah, and my daughter, Julia, participate in the school's track program. To do this I have to go and pick them up at 4:30pm. So I am outside, yesterday, at 4pm waiting for the bus. It usually arrives no later than 4:08pm. I know there is a sub so when it is a bit later than that I don't freak out. Then suddenly I hear the bus. I can tell from the sound of it that it is traveling at a high rate of speed for our neighborhood. And ZOOM!!! it flies by the house. I am in the yard frantically waving the bus down. The driver is not the woman but some man who had subbed for us last year. He is starring straight ahead and the children inside look frantic and confused.

As always happens at these crazy moments in my life, I am on the cell phone talking to my sister. My cell phone which is now being burned up by calls from my neighbor which I was not answering. I finally have to interrupt my sister so I can get off the phone and call my neighbor. I am thinking she may know something about what is going on with the bus. So I call her and she asks if the bus dropped my kids off. "Nope!" We hang up. Ten minutes goes by and I decide to call the school to let them know I am going to be late picking my children up. I decided to ask for the school bus depot so I can call them. As I hang up I hear the bus again. It still sounds like it is racing down the road and I step out a little further in my yard hoping the guy will see me. I am frantically waiving my arms. He is staring straight ahead. Whoosh and he is gone again.

I call my neighbor. This time she confesses that she isn't even home. Her 11-year-old son is home to get his two younger siblings off the bus and no, it still hasn't stopped. Now I am pretty ticked. This guy is racing through our neighborhood at break neck speeds and, from what I can tell, isn't letting kids off the bus. I get off the phone.

I am standing in my yard next to the dead Mimosa tree. I am breaking small branches off it. I am kicking some of the bigger branches off. It's been dead that long. I decide to call the bus depot. A very nice lady answers and I tell her that I have five kids on the bus and two still at school needing picked up. I tell her the bus has flown by here twice. Suddenly I am hearing the bus again. I can tell, by the sound, that he is once again flying down the road. I say out loud into the phone, "I AM THROWING THIS STICK OUT IN THE STREET TO GET HIM TO STOP!"

I throw a large stick and run forward. He has seen it and is looking at me like he wants to kill me. I am glaring right back at him as I motion for him to stop while I yell, "STOP!!! STOP!!!" And continue yelling that until he actually really does stop the bus. He was going so fast that the bus ended up stopping just past the front of my house.

I ran around to the now open door of the bus. The bus driver is still looking at me like he wants to throttle me. He suddenly notices he has a group of kids by him and begins yelling at them asking, "Why are you up here? Go back and sit down!"

"Those are my children. This is where they live. This is where they get off the bus!" My voice is stern as I am upset that he is being so ugly. The kids start to get off the bus and I tell them to wait. That the bus driver must cross their names off the list before they can get off. This is normal procedure on our buses.

"You threw a stick at my bus," the bus driver snarled at me.

"I threw the stick at the edge of the road. I needed to get your attention as you have passed me out here three time. Well... actually two times and this was going to be the third except I got your attention."

"What are all you kids doing. GO SIT DOWN!!"

"These are my kids. Look. You see this? This is my son Luke. He is crying! My children are special needs. You have my son crying here," I said comforting my son. He responded rudely again, saying something about trying to figure out the route.

I am not writing everything that was said but he was definitely being a real jerk. But I have to admit I did have some satisfaction knowing that his boss was listening to him. Three different times during our conversation I spoke to this lady at the bus garage that was just quietly taking in all that was happening and being said and asked her, "Are you hearing this?" The third time I said that to her she asked me to put him on the phone.

"It's for you," I said holding the phone out toward him. He rolled his eyes and went back to what he was doing. "It's the bus depot... er... garage," I said shaking the phone at him so he would take it. I watched a quick "Oh Great," look flash across his face, but he quickly returned to a furrowed brow and took the phone. He was quiet. He said "Ok," then "All right," and then handed the phone back to me. He never said another word.

My kids exited the bus and headed over to the van which they saw wide open. I got on the bus and got little Mathew out of his safety harness and carried him off the bus. I didn't look back. Once in the van the kids told me how the driver was punching the ceiling of the bus and telling the children to be quiet so he could focus on what he was supposed to be doing. Of course the kids were all being noisy because they were all upset watching their bus stops go by. I also found out that Ajia was crying on the bus as well.

Can you imagine being in a bus that is supposed to drop you off at your destination and it just keeps flying by it. As an adult I find that very upsetting to think about. Someone else is in control and they don't know what they are doing. They are flying up and down the streets trying to make a go of it. They aren't calling in for help because they don't want to look bad. Their focus has gone quickly from I am here for you to I am here for me. I don't want to look bad. And when you try to communicate with the driver he just gets upset and yells that you need to be quiet so he can focus. Helpless is the word that comes to mind.

I guess that is a lot like our lives. Sometimes we find ourselves in places where we no longer feel in control. The bank has charged a maintenance fee that has thrown your account into the red and they are now bouncing your checks and throwing you further into debt with high bounce fees. You are working but your company is cutting back on hours when you are barely making ends meet. You are eating right, exercising and trying to keep yourself healthy only to find out that you have a terminal illness or disease. And the list could go on and on with things that we just don't feel we have control over. When that bus was blowing by our house I felt like I had no control. No way to save my children. To get them off that bus. It was very frustrating because I had two other children not on that bus that were stranded at school and needed me to be there to get them. I was helpless... until the I thought of that stick!

As always... God provides. If it hadn't been for that dead Mimosa in the yard and me standing there knocking the branches off it, I would have had nothing to have stopped that bus with. And I am not a stick thrower. I mean, when that came out of me, well... I am embarrassed when I look back on it. I make jokes when telling people the story saying I suddenly turned into neanderthal woman. "Me have stick. Me stop bus! Uugghh!" LOL I am not a stick thrower. I wonder what that woman on the phone thought when I suddenly burst out with "I am throwing this stick out in the street to get him to stop,"? LOL

Today when the bus came I told the driver he was never to take a day off again. We both laughed and then he started to explain why he had to have a day off. LOL Like I was serious. I asked him if he'd heard about the crazy lady that threw a stick at the bus to get it to stop. His eyes lit up as he said, "What?" I laughed and pointed at myself and then gave him the abridged version of what happened. I told him that I thought they should fire the guy. I was shocked by his reply. "They did fire him. I don't know why they ever brought him back." Crazy!!

My thoughts on it now? Thank you God for providing that branch that ended the craziness and stopped the bus! :o)*

If only you will ask, I will help you

Can I walk on water if I run fast enough?

The title of this post are words God put in my mind so many years ago as I came awake from a very bad dream to bring me back to him. In my younger years I suffered much. I was a walking example of Murphy's Law for many years of my young life. I remember one really bad day in particular that I had stopped by to see my Brother, Larry, on my way home from work. He knew what I had been going through and he made this comment to me, "Look at it this way. You are already at the bottom. So things can't get any worse."

I went home that day to find HRS (now called the department of children and families) on my doorstep. Now this was allowed by God and I now know this. How do I know... well check this out. That morning I had left for work before the kids got on the bus as was usual. The bus came to the front of the house a short time after I left each morning and the kids simply walked out the front door and onto the bus. So it was to be a typical day. We had a dog then named Buster and the kids let Buster out the back door each morning before getting on the bus. But this particular day they didn't. They left him in the house. We didn't leave Buster in the house during the day as he literally would pull the house apart. I mean laundry would get pulled out of the laundry closet, cushions would get pulled off the couch, the trash would get knocked over and garbage drug to his favorite resting spots around the house, and with no one to take him out he would leave little stinky and wet gifts every where. Also on this particular day the school some how missed that my son was in school and that afternoon sent a truant officer to my house. When no one answered the door the truant officer, believing my son was inside hiding from him and not answering, went to the condo offices and had the lady there let him in to our condo. Well... you know what they found. Not just my normal sink full of breakfast dishes... no... they found that and all of Buster's mess. Of course, thinking (and you know God has his hand in this because who would have a house that looked and smelled like that) that this was the way we lived, they called HRS. So when I got home there they on my door step.

I knew the worker pretty well from my days as a Deputy Sheriff and she was truly upset because I seemed to be taking it all so lightly, as if I didn't realize the seriousness of it. But I didn't. I didn't think anyone would think that anyone would live in a house like that. I thought she would know that what I was telling her about the kids leaving the dog inside was pretty evident. But she got upset and told me she could take my kids from me and take me to jail and I needed to take this seriously. Whoa!! I suddenly got this big knot in my throat realizing that she didn't see the truth of it and really believed that we could live this way. (I don't know how to this day) So I agreed to have someone come out to the house twice a week to see that it and the kids were all OK for a few months. Hey... no biggie, especially since this was the final straw with the dog.

By the time they left the kids began arriving home and I loaded them in the car with the dog and went and chewed my brother out for jinxing me!! Then I gave him the dog. Things continued to be bad in my life. One day a close friend suggested I send the kids out to live with their Dad for a year or two while I got on my feet. The same day that happened my kids were left in a classroom because Mom didn't have the money for their field trip so they stayed at the school and waived good-bye to their friends and greeted them back later when they returned. In the interim they colored and did busy work at a table in the library. It was the push that made me give serious thought to what had been suggested. I contacted the kids Dad and asked what he thought. He was fine with it but said I would have to sign over custody while they were there because he was going to be moving to Germany as was his military assignment. Instead of seeing that as a bad thing, I trusted him and thought what a neat experience it would be for the kids. After all my twins were born in Germany so it would give them the chance to learn more about the country they were born in. So off they went and no sooner had the ink been put to paper their Daddy informed them that I didn't love them and had dumped them in his lap because I didn't want them anymore. Remember the whole Murphy's Law thing. And it didn't stop there. But I will spare you as that isn't where this is supposed to be going. I could right a book on unhappy things. But I'd rather stick with the point of this post.

So needless to say, I was at an all time low in my life with my kids gone. I wouldn't say I was depressed but I was unhappy. I turned my back on God. I told anyone who asked that I'd rather believe that there was no God than believe there was a God that would let me go through all I had been through. I looked into other belief choices. Wicca, Earth worship and the like. I found that all they did was replace one God with another. The earth, the moon, directional God's, you name it. I had been disappointed by THE one and only God. Why on earth was I going to start believing that if I burned some incense or dropped some water or special oil in this direction or that or inscribed stones with symbols and wrote what I wanted or burned specific candles that it would ever make anything different. So I decided that I was just going to believe in me amd what did and didn't happen in my life was a direct result of what I did or didn't do. No outside forces. No God's or anything else. Just me. And that is just what I did.

It was about 3 or 4 years of this and I was doing OK. I didn't feel the deep happiness in my life that I wanted. After all I couldn't get my kids back due to the use of the stupid Soldiers and Sailors act that protected their Dad and left them in misery with people who continually worked against me. But I was busy. I was working. I had met what would be my future husband and eventually married him. And finally I managed to get my children back home. And then it happened...

I was dreaming. I was being chased by evil. I was in a place with lots of stairs and outside upper level walkways that led from building to building. I would run one way and there it would be. I would turn and run another. Every time I thought I had found the right path there was evil and I had to turn and run to find another. I finally ended up on a path that led to one of the buildings and I knew, as I looked at the big double doors, that it was locked up. I was out on the walkway. It was high up and there was no where to go and evil had blocked the path and was slowly closing in on me. Suddenly I heard what I knew was God's voice or what I guess my mind would imagine his voice to be and he said, "If only you will ask, I will help you." It was so strong and clear that I startled awake as I heard it. I knew it was God beyond a shadow of a doubt.

I spent the day thinking about it. Trying not to let it get clouded over like so many dreams will if you don't talk about them or write them down. I didn't want to tell any one as I knew it would sound like I was some religious nut rather than a baby that had just been awakened by her loving Father. I relate people who say they hear God actually physically speaking to them as nuts who go commit awful crimes, murders and so on saying God spoke to them and told them to do it. So telling anyone that I had physically heard God's voice was not an option. OK, so I admit it, I did finally confide in my husband who I knew loved me unconditionally... even if I was suddenly becoming some religious nut who claims to have heard God's voice. Of course I assured him that the voice was out of a dream so my mind had created it, but the message was from God and that I knew was true beyond a shadow of a doubt.

And it changed me. It opened the door back to God, whom I always knew was there but denied. And eventually God blessed me with the insight to see why he had allowed those awful things in my life and I knew that he had to do them just the way he had to lead me to where I was. And I was given an insight that no preacher yet has agreed with. God does not test us. He does not test us to find out what he already knows. He doesn't just say... "Hey. Let's test your faith so I can show you how faithless you are or how faithful you are." God is not that cruel. But God does allow thing to happen in our lives to lead us to where we need to be. To keep us on the path he has designed for us. The path that is his will for us and our lives. I will argue this to the day I die that God does not just randomly say "Hey! Let's kill off both your parents unexpectedly because I want to test you." That's garbage. He doesn't allow children to become ill so he can test your faith. He knows you are human and are going to hurt and sometimes find yourself in doubt. He knows exactly what it will do to you and where it will lead you and who it will affect and change and lead to where they need to be to be in line with God's will for their lives.

I actually started to write a book I was going to title "God, if this is a test, I fail!" All about the subject of God not testing us but leading us with the things he allows in our life. I mean... think about it... you walk in and get fired from your job, go home to find your wife has left you and your dog is dead. What would you rather it be... a test so God can see what he already knows or God leading you down his path that will eventually lead to the job you should have had that you would have never have taken the chance to even get because the wife you had really was not the partner you were meant to be with and had you under her thumb and the dog was going to suffer terribly and God took him home early to avoid that and to give you the freedom to move into that apartment that was close to the building that you ended up finding that job at because it was just around the corner? (I think that was the longest run on sentence I have ever written. LOL)

OK, off my soap box. The point of this was to talk about asking God for help. And how God brought me back to him by saying that to me in the midst of a very bad, but realistic, dream. I still try not to ask God for too much. I believe he is in control of every aspect of my life, so I still catch myself asking him for silly things like to please let the line at the post office be short so I can get in and out of there. Yet, I still add, "Only if it be your will." Because as much as I want to breeze in and out of there, if it isn't God's will... then he knows I will accept that long line or that lady with three packages who wants to know all about all the different shipping options for each one.

God is there for us. Listening and being an awesome God. He knows what we want and he gives us what he knows we need to lead us where we need to be to find the happiness that he wants us to have. And when we fight it we suffer the consequences. Like trying to make things happen in our time rather than trusting in God's timing. Boy has God taught me lesson after lesson about that... but that's a whole different post. God wants us to ask for his help. He wants to carry us through the rough times. He wants to soothe our hearts when they are breaking. He want to cool our brow when we are sick. He wants to wrap us in the warmth of his love and keep us happy and whole forever more. All we have to do is ask. :o)*

The Razor's Edge

LUKE: HIGH POTENTIAL WITH A HIGH PROBABILITY OF LAUGHTER


What is it with kids and razors? I think everyone I know has, at one time or another in their childhood, picked up a razor and cut themselves. Last night as I walked back and checked on all the kids before I went to bed I found my son, Elijah, asleep with bloody tissues all over his bed. He had used our tub for his bath and, as 9-year-old boys will sometimes do, got curious about Mommy's razor. He knows he is not supposed to touch it. He has been told it can cut him. He has even seen a cut on my leg and asked only to hear that I had cut myself with my razor while shaving. But last night he removed the safety cover, which isn't just a slide off cover, it's actually set up to where you have to press in on both ends for it to come off, something his little hands have grown big enough to do. And from there he cut his thumb. Not a bad cut. He shaved off a small layer of skin on the corner of his thumb, just enough to cause it to bleed. That combined with him being wet made way for lots of bloody tissue. As he slept I cleaned it up and bandaged it properly with a dab of triple antibiotic ointment to prevent it from getting infected.

As I went and laid down in my own bed I thought about him cutting himself and all the times I had warned him. We do a lot of talking about potential, probability and consequences here. Parents are always telling their kids things like, "Don't jump on the couch you could fall off and break your neck," "Don't climb up on that you could fall and get hurt," "Don't eat so much candy, you'll make yourself sick," "Don't play in the road, you'll get hit by a car." Then the kid will sneak behind your back and do these very things and when the warning doesn't happen they lose respect for what you are telling them. With my kids I tell them you are increasing the probability or the potential that you will get hurt. I explained to them that when I was little I was told not to climb the neighbor's tree as I could fall and get hurt or even die. When I snuck and climbed it and didn't get hurt I just knew my parents didn't know what they were talking about. About the fifth time I snuck up in that tree I reached up and grabbed a branch, as I always did in climbing, and went to pull myself up... but the branch was dying and broke off and down I went, landing flat on my back knocking the wind out of me. I laid there on the ground looking up, stunned fighting to breathe. I lifted my hand and looked at the branch that was still in it as my lungs finally allowed me to inflate them with air. There was a brief second during that time that I thought I was truly going to die. I didn't and nothing had gotten broken.

I told the kids that every time you jump on the couch you are not going to fall off... but eventually you will if you continue to do it. You are increasing the chances of it happening. The potential is there and the probability increases every time. And the worst thing about it is that you don't get a do over.

Julia has, twice now, over eaten to the point of leaving the table only to end up throwing up. It's been well over a year since she last did that.

Three of the youngest, Luke, Ajia and Samuel, still, from time to time, leave their cup on the edge of the table. Most nights it doesn't get spilled. At least 3 - 4 times each they have dumped it over. The consequence, because they know the potential and probability, is an early bedtime on top of having to clean it up themselves until Mommy is satisfied it is all cleaned up. They, too, have not done this in about 6 months.

Mathew fell off our bed once and never tried to get off by himself after that. It's a long way to the floor for a three-year-old.

I continue to leave my brief case leaned up against my desk where I have, twice now, whacked my toe into it leaving me in blinding pain. AND IT'S STILL THERE!!

So in our house the rule is you are not allowed to jump on the couch or from couch to couch, as our boys tend to want to do. If you do then you increase the chance of a couple of things. One, is that you will get caught and go to bed early. Two, is that you will finally hit that one time that you or someone else will get hurt because of it and you can't take it back.

This morning I reinforced with Elijah that he knew the potential was there for him to get hurt. He hoped the probability was not there and then found out that is was there and he got cut just like he had been warned. Now his finger is sore and it is going to sting when sweat gets into it tonight at his football practice. It may sting like that for the next few days. The consequences are his.

This got me thinking about God and us, as his children. God gave us the bible to guide us and warn us. He gave us the intelligence to see other dangers and warn each other. But how many times in our lives do we have all the information about the dangers of something and just ignore it and do it anyway. "Don't drink and drive." "Curve ahead 25mph." "Smoking is hazardous to your health." "No diving." "Speed limit 55." And those are just some of the "in your face" things. There are also the little things that we know we shouldn't do like overeat, use credit cards, gossip and so on.

Then I thought about when we are wounded and imagined God coming in while we were unaware and bandaging our wounds. Giving peace to our hearts. Lifting our spirits, our souls. Making it better so we could arise and move forward, hopefully aware, as I made sure my son was this morning, of where we went wrong so we can avoid doing it again. Recognizing the potential and probability and avoiding those things as to not suffer the consequences of that one time we can't take back.

Our Blessings and negative thinking

Our blessings are our children... My husband works at the local nuclear plant and they are in outage right now. This means that he is working 6 days a week, 12 hours a day. I know... can you imagine. But he is a good man and moves forward without complaint as he is providing for the blessings God has bestowed upon us. On the seventh day he rests and spends the day with his children and I. Usually, we go out to breakfast or lunch. Herein the motivation for todays post.

Taking our big group of children out to breakfast or lunch, especially on a Sunday, is a major endeavour. Not just getting them dressed or out and buckled into their seats in the van, but also into the restaurant. As their Mom I am watching over their every move and my mind remains silently critical. Jake's walking to loudly, clopping his feet as he goes. (Jake loves to be loud just like his Mom did when she was little. He is our grandson but is with us quite often on weekends by request) Ajia is fluttering along like a butterfly here and there getting in the waitresses way and in the way of customers departing. Sam and Luke are still trying to continue a light saber battle that they were playing in the van. Elijah is asking a little to loudly to please be able to sit by the baby, our youngest son, Mathew. Julia is tugging on Dad asking to sit next to him and I am warily watching Katie as she all most backs in to the people already seated at the table next to ours. I say nothing on any of this but only speak to remind them that they need to be respectful of the other people in the restaurant's desire to eat a quiet peaceful meal.

We have the meal down to a science so it is never a major thing to get dinner ordered. Sprite to drink for the kids and they circle what they want on the menu so the waitress can get their individual orders in the way she wants them. Oh if you have ever tried to just tell a waitress you want two kids pizza plates, two cheese burger plates, a grill cheese plate and three corn dog plates all with fries as the side... well... try it some time. It's like total mayhem for the waitress. Waitresses usually have a system, not only for them but for their servers, so they don't have to come out and ask "Who gets what?" So our system incorporates prevention of waitress meltdown. It works and we like it and you should see how happy the waitresses are.

Then the meal comes and my mind revs backs up into gear and thankfully my lips stay silent as I watch my children eat. Jake inhales and his meal is gone. Katie wears much of what she eats from cheek to cheek. Julia always drops at least one stain causing agent onto whatever part of her clothing is light colored. With Elijah, Luke and Sam it is how they eat. They, although taught at home at the dinner table how to eat, completely lose all sense of decorum. Food never meant to be picked up by their little hands dangle between their fingers dripping down on the table cloth and napkins as they pull it back to their mouth rather than come forward for it. Hamburgers are pulled apart and eaten one piece at a time. Fingers are dragged through their ketchup and licked. Their faces amazingly don't seem to catch any of this but from time to time their clothing does. Again, I have taught them better and don't recall seeing this at home. It's like when they are going out to eat they think it is time to regress and eat like I often see kids eating in the school cafeteria. But they are quiet and are not disturbing anyone... as far as they know.

But all this is leading to the ever constant phenomenon that occurs every time we go out to eat. People will just walk up to our table and tell us what well behaved kids we have. I initially felt stunned and stammered through thank yous as I tried to swim through all the things I'd witnessed and wondered about all they had missed. And when it continued to happen every single time we went out I felt myself wondering if I was missing something. Of course I took the opportunity to give the glory to God for blessing us with such wonderful children. But I remained dumbfounded.

Then one day my wonderful husband told me he had figured it out. I was eager to hear what he had to say as I was still lost. He told me that what happens is these people see our big family coming and being seated by them or they being seated by our big family. They instantly just know that they are going to have a miserable dining experience because of all those kids. By the time we are done, or they are, they feel compelled to come tell us what great kids we have because they didn't meet their expectations. LOL I do have to laugh because as soon as he said it, I knew it was true. That had to be it. I mean, sometimes two or more couples will come up to tell us how wonderful our children are. And it has gone from stunning me to being common place. And, as has become customary, I use the opportunity to bring God into the conversation every time.

Today, the couple seated next to us came and complimented us on how well behaved our children were. It was cute because the woman wanted to go on and on about where the children were from and telling us about her friend in New York whose daughter adopted a little girl from Russia and so on while her patient husband clearly was becoming more and more uncomfortable with the amount of time she was taking. Which reminded me of other awkward moments when we were in the midst of a meal and the person went on and on with us sitting there with forks full of food held in limbo before out lips, trying not to be rude to the wonderful people that wanted to compliment our family, yet knowing that bite was only growing colder by the moment. And you know if you put that bite in your mouth there will be a question or something that will require you to speak. Kind of like the phenomenon where you put a bite of food in your mouth and that is when the restaurant manager or waitress will come up and ask about your dining experience. All you can do is sit there and gesture to your rapidly moving jaw that is feverishly trying to grind down the food in your mouth to a swallowable size so you can respond without spitting food on him. Fortunately today we were just finishing up when the couple came up so no full forks or uncomfortable waits. We were able to enjoy the moment.

It is strange though. I think many things in life we instantly feel negative about without even giving it a chance. I was stopped once by an Deputy Sheriff and I was just so upset as when you have a big family there is no room for traffic tickets. They are definitely not in the budget. I sat there pondering what I was going to have to go without to pay for this ticket. Obviously I had been speeding as that is something I commonly catch myself doing and had successfully, I thought, been doing well with not doing. When the deputy got to my car I asked him why he had stopped me.

"Your tag is loose."

"Excuse me?"

"Your tag is loose. Looks like you have lost one of the screws." Now here was this guy doing me a favor so I didn't end up completely losing my tag and having to pay for a completely new one and I can tell you I didn't have a good Christian attitude about it. Not because of him, but because I instantly expected the worst. I was choking back the tears of relief as I thanked him and told him I would have my husband take care of it. Ok... so that was probably a once in a life time event but it was the perfect example of expecting the worst.

I see the school name pop up on my cell phone... "Someone is sick," is usually my first thought. The doctor's office... "We have missed an appointment we will have to pay for." Any of my older kids, "What's happened??" A number I don't recognize, "What bill did we forget?" How many times. So knowing this I tried once to vow I wasn't going to have negative thoughts every time the phone rang. Ha! It's a lot like I imagine being psychotic would be when you try to stop something so ingrained. The phone rings and there you are... "It's the school. Someone sick? No probably just want to check something with me. Julia wasn't feeling well this morning. When was the last parent teacher conference? Probably that time. I heard Sam coughing last night," and on and on. You'd be surprised how many thoughts can race through your mind while picking up and opening up your phone to answer it when you are fighting negative thoughts.

I am working on ways to stop my negative thinking, but I have a long ways to go. In the mean time I will keep thanking God for all the times I am wrong. Coming to him, just as the couples come to our table, to tell him how wonderful I think he is and how thankful I am for everything in my life. :o)*

The Beginning With Thoughts of the End...

God is a mystery. Duh!! I am constantly learning and experiencing this life God gave me. Trying on my own, without a church or church family to follow God, to bring him home and to surround my family with him. So God is always at the forefront of everything in my life. And I mean in crazy way as well as sane ones. I bust my toe into a chair leg. I look up, sometimes in blinding tears, and say "Ok God, why did you allow that one?" Yeah... like that. Like God suddenly took a 2 second break from my life and during that 2 seconds I whacked my toe into a chair leg. Silly... but I do believe that everything that does and doesn't happen to me is directly a part of God's divine plan and will in my life. And thus this crazy blog which will likely be of no interest to anyone but me. :o)

So let's start with today. I am riding down the road with two of my 12 kids in my car. (Yes, I am 12 times blessed). A car slowly crosses the center line and I instantly say, "Ok God, what's the deal?" As the car slowly finds it's way back into it's lane and my heart back into my chest I reflect on the fact that this is the third time this has happened to me in four days. Yes, Wednesday, with my husband in the car to witness it, Friday on the way to Wal-Mart to buy my son his soccer ball and shin guards and today, Saturday, on my way home from dropping my son and grandson off at their football game. (I usually stay but I have the flu and the coach has promised to watch after them until I return to pick them up. I made them swear they wouldn't make any wonderful plays in my absence and then that they wouldn't tell the coach I made them promise that. :o)

So the thought of three times in the past four days sent my visual mind right to the worst case scenario and there I was seeing myself killed. Great to have a visual mind... NOT!!! But this got me thinking about knowing things in advance. And how I would feel if God came to me the day before he was going to take me from this earth and let me know. And in my thinking I imagined him telling me what was going to happen and why. And this is what I imagined he might say:

"Tomorrow I am going to bring you home. You will be in your car driving with two of your youngest children. You will die instantly and the two little ones will have some minor injuries but will not die."

Now instantly tears fill my eyes. Yeah... I am a cry baby when I am sick with the flu and now, sitting there thinking of being taken away from my family... forget it. I did my best to choke them back as my thinking continued...

"Do not cry. You will be taken and they will all be sad for your loss but from this your husband will turn his life over to me. Your older children and your sisters will rally around your husband and help him as he adjusts and makes arrangements for help with the care of the kids. He will continue on in strong christian faith being the example you always knew he'd be to your children. He will remarry a good christian woman who will help him in his faith and be good to your children.

Because of this your son, Luke, who will struggle in his teen years due to his ADD, will turn his life to me and become one of my own, a preacher, bringing many of my children to me and much joy to his congregation with his sense of humor and loving heart.

Your other children will all come to me accepting me into their lives as you have already planted these seeds and the coming of your husband to this place will only make the conviction in their hearts stronger. They will all be successful. Elijah will make great discoveries in his endeavors, Samuel and Ajia both will become the doctors they say they want to become and will help many people. Katie will become the teacher's aid in school as is her dream and Julia will become a teacher at the very same school being there for Katie. They will all be there for Katie and she will be safe. Mathew will become a professor of language arts and Maggie will have the family she has always dreamed of.

Your daughter Kristy will turn away from her bad habits and meet the man that will be everything she has wanted in her life and more..."

Now by this time I am crying silently in the front praying the kids in the back don't ask me anything because at this point I couldn't answer without it being obvious that I was crying my eyes out. I am aware of this and I pull myself out of this thought process and back to where I am. (Sorry it didn't go further)

So... would knowing this before the accident that would take my life make it ok? Could the thought of dying ever be an ok one? Would knowing all the good that would come from ones own death make facing it any easier???

When I pray each night the final thing I say before I end my prayers is, "Above all I have asked, dear Lord, first and foremost I want your will to be done." In my head I know clearly that I have just said, "So even though I asked for this and that, you can forget it if it is not within your will." So why even ask for what I want? Because he asked me to tell him in the Bible so I do and then I tell him what he already knows which is that I only want these things if they be within his will for me because I know his will is perfect and I will be the happiest within it. :o)

So the answer is... No. It wouldn't making facing my own death easier, but his will for my life is what I want irregardless of the cost or the unpleasantness of it. I know whatever befalls me and my family had to go through God first as we are his and under his protection. If our house should suddenly come falling down upon us or if I should suddenly stub my toe into a chair... I know it first went through him and there is a reason for it. Be it something as silly as to make me move the chair to another location or to make me more attentive to the things around me or some other reason that I may never know or figure out. His will has been done no matter how trivial it may seem to a mere mortal mind like mine. :o)*