Today

Today, I lost sight of what is important.  I want to use what life brings for the Lord with a spirit of joy that comes from the confidence that walking in Him brings.  I am not always successful.

It was a busy day as Boyd busy days go.  I had made breakfast and dinner the night before to make the day a little smoother.  It started at 5:30am when Matt, Ben, Josiah, and Elijah went to men's breakfast together at church.  The rest of us got up at 6:30 to eat breakfast, dress, pack stuff for the day, pick up the house and repair the dryer.  At 8:00 we head to Cheyenne for dentist appointments.


We had 8 appointments.  All of them good.  Elijah and Josiah will not need braces.  Yay!  No cavities for Elijah, Josiah, Samuel, Luke, Gideon, or Abbey.  The dentist is waiting to see how Sam's eye teeth come in before they know if he needs braces.  They want him to try to wiggle out an unloose baby tooth to get the eye tooth moved down.  They say its rarely possible, but I'm encouraging him with a bribe of ten dollars and 4 hours of computer game time if he gets it out by November.  He is making me put it in writing so here you are Sam. : )  Titus and Silas have 2 cavities each in the back.  The dentist said he thought Abbey was marvelous at her first appointment.  He said, "Its very unusual for them to be so easy at this age. "  He probably tells all the moms that their baby is the best. : ) 

Next was a tour of Matt's office.  He works at the Department of Corrections Headquarters in Cheyenne.  We had never been there and he offered to show us around.  We met about 30 people and each time they wanted to know all the kids names and ages.  The kids got really fast, "I'm Elijah I'm 12." "I'm Sam, I'm 11." "I'm Joe, i'm 9", (squeak)" Silas I'm 7", (loud and bossy) "Luke 6", "I'm Titus and I'm 5", "um i'm Gideon and I'm 4". (All of us) "Actually he is 3.  And this is Abbey."

There were two narcotics dogs on site and the boys got their own demonstration of the dogs looking for drugs.  The officers brought out a bag of marijuana and let Sam pick a spot to hide it.  Then they gave each dog a chance to find it.  It took seconds and each dog alerted to the drugs.  They also let the boys smell a bag that had marijuana on it.  The dogs would alert by sitting down.  The odd thing was one of the dogs kept sitting next to Luke...

During our tour Matt was in the front showing the way and I was in the back with Abbey and Gideon.  At one point we entered an office to say hello and as we were doing introductions I realized Abbey was gone.  She had just been in front of Gideon!  Where did she go?  We looked around the office, out the door, down the hall, under the desk.  She had escaped.  She had turned back and run down two hallways before we caught up to her.  Embarrassing with a capitol E.


By the time we left it was almost 2.  We went across the street and had lunch at Wendys and then went to my 2:40 eye doctor appointment across town.  Matt came with me to babysit while I had my appointment.

It wasn't until 4:30 that we were out of the eye doctor and I was driving Matt back to work.  Long day.  Matt and I had both assumed the eye appointment would be 30 minutes or so.  We had no idea it would go on for 2 hours.  He was very disappointed that he had missed so much work that day and decided to put a few more hours in that evening.

On my end, I still had an hour to drive home, a fitness class to lead, and no hubby home to watch the kids while I was at it.

We made it home at 6:05, I had to go potty something fierce.  I was also feeling a bit backed up and crampy - probably from fast food + driving.  As I'm sitting in the bathroom,  I hear Josiah talking to someone.  Soon, Gideon opens the bathroom door and there stands our lovely friend Michelle Hanson who has stopped over to ask what time the fitness class was.  I don't think she saw me, but it was embarrassing.

I couldn't find my flashdrive that has our workout music on it, I didn't have my fitness cheat sheets printed up, and Luke was tattling on multiple people.  I was still backed up and had only about 10 minutes before class started.  I chugged some water and coffee to help my backed upedness and to give me a little energy before class, fed everyone a banana to hold them over for dinner and we all headed for the gym.

The boys settled down to play in the gym, and a few boys took Abbey and played on the playground where at some point she fell off some equipment.  No boo boo, but not very happy either.

So where did I lose sight of what was important?  I was not together for the fitness class.  I like to be organized and unhurried and despite my best efforts, I was neither.   But, that didn't mean I have lost sight of the goal.  Before saying yes to leading the fitness class, I had been very prayerful and considered the time cost for my family.  Matt encouraged me to do it and I felt comfortable with it.

The point that I lost sight of what was important, was when, I began to take my eyes off of Jesus and onto myself.  I looked at myself and thought, "what a bad job I'm doing".  I'm hurried, I'm not giving the fitness class what they deserve, the children are having to hang out here instead of eating their supper at home with dad. 

If I were truly looking at Jesus, I would have had a different perspective.  I would do the best job I could with the time and resources I had and trust the rest to him. While I didn't know how late the eye appointment was, and I hadn't counted on Matt not coming home, God did know those things.  There will be those days when I lack foresight and over schedule.  But that doesn't mean I should have a low self esteem moment.  Those are the times to remember that God is bigger than my failures.  Those are the times when he gives grace to the humble, encourages the weary, and grows wisdom in His children.

So my next eye appointment will NOT be on a day when we have fitness class.  Actually as it stands, one Tuesday in May I have scheduled, 2 follow up dental appointments, and 8 eye doctor appointments.  Time to reconsider the schedule and keep my eyes on Jesus....