Perfect Failure.

It is Thursday. Not as close to Friday as it felt three weeks ago, but yet it is somehow that same day of the week.

So many things....... I want to start with my blahs and end with God...so here I go.....

Today felt closer to failure than success.... the school called about Jonah around 11:15 today--my work day with my 5! I hoped he would not need to come home, but as it turns out, he was complaining of a headache (stands to reason after falling on it playing outside) and they felt he should go home. RIIIIIIIIIIIGHT! Go home, when I have 5 toddlers/preschoolers and FOUR carseats. Go home. RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT! So I started making calls. Thanks be to God (who says that?) Kristin was able to come be with the kiddos before her next client. I was able to get him around 12:10. At 12:30 I got the long-awaited call about my (part-time) job with families first. Second income??!!! NO, no, no. No, they had another candidate apply who, "Just happened to have everything they were looking for in a candidate." Oh. Oh, oh, o. Okay, maybe next time? No, just a 'good luck' for me. "Good thing I have ONE job", I thought!

We are certainly strung like a top these days....and I knew it was coming. I was hoping that being overbooked would keep me from emotionally eating, or feeling like I was not leaving a stamp on the world--but instead, I feel like one more mother who is trying to steer a steamship with a kite-flyers license.

Thankfully, every time I try to muster a "wooh-is-me" I remember the blessing that is my life. I remember these golden children....this job, this house, this ticking heart...my family, my love, my ability to think and put one foot mostly in-front of the other (if even forgiving the swish, swish of my pants as I do it) and to kneel to pray at night. I am reminded of an exercise I did with my daycare 4 or 5 years ago where we made a thankfulness tree and I started the lesson by asking my 3s and 4s to shout out everything they were thankful for.

MY DADDY!
MY TOYS!
MY ARMS!
MY TOES!

My arms? My toes? It stopped me dead in my "but I have a purpose to this lesson as a teacher" tracks and was struck dumb in understanding (can you be struck dumb if you are understanding something?). We have the great things that are so obviously gifts....but then we have our thumbs, and our pinky toes and our hair that curls both under and over and WOW! Suddenly we have the world! We are the masters of so much bounty we can hardly stand under the awesomeness of us......suddenly, despite our desires to be caught in how we are NOT KEEPING UP WITH THE JONES', we just have to realize that we have so so so much.

This week, I have been bouncing between the blogs of the Alders and reading my email about the trust of my "late" uncle (Late? Why do we say that when someone has passed??) It has really given me so very much to think about! My lovely, perfected uncle in Heaven (whom I continue to miss more than I ever thought I would on all those days I could have called him and just got too busy too....sorry Marv!) was in my box of photos in an unusually large way the last time I pulled it out. How did I get to be the owner of so many pictures of Marvin? Seeing his Marvin-grin--what a cheese--made me sad and so glad at the same time. Sure I was crying like only a "I should have been better to you when you were alive" person would do....but I was also so thankful for my belief in heaven--my complete faith in forgiveness, and my knowledge that THERE/ IN HEAVEN he has so much, and understands so perfectly how I feel about him, and can receive from my prayers on his behalf and feel the effects of all those who try to honor him or live honorably in his name! I still feel the complete gift that is KNOWING that Marv understands how I love him much better now than while we were both living. That is such a gift!

Then too, with Kens' friend Kate Alder who lost her husband last week in a car accident--only a year and a half together as a couple--I was again given a firming of faith in the pure sanctity and blessedness of LOVE. In our chances to have it, to learn from it, to share it, and to be altered by it in HIS name.

Since reading about Mr. Neal's cancer (and last weeks) I have been so much more fully aware of my life! I feel saddened and needlessly stalled by the outside world temping me away with worldly and unimportant goals for myself. I have delighted in taking as many moments as I can every day to remind those I know (and a few who are pure strangers) how I love and appreciate their mark on this world. I take note more brightly of the praises I hear from person to person--pause over the smiles, and try to give more enthusiasm and purity to my closings with people.

This morning, I had to make a call to the building code office at the city building. "Shirley" answered the phone--it must have been 9:10. I began by asking her how she was, and she said, "fine" in quite the ordinary way. Then I told her I was calling "because I have just a few questions for you." She perked up, laughed, and said, "Questions! Why does everyone call with questions?" She was kidding, of course! That is her job, after all! But I took her cue, and laughed along with her and said, "But my questions can wait. I really want to know right now how things are going for you? Is there anything new in your life?" She laughed again, but then told me how she was feeling that she would "feel better, if she was feeling better." We chatted for a few minutes about how she was feeling--all very friendly and lighthearted. When we got to my questions, we had already had a few laughs and really connected. She was delightful--and hearing her perk up really put a great spin to MY already hectic day...

There are tragedies around us. There are people who don't have the right perspective or have forgotten where to put their hearts for a time. There are those with blinders, or those fallen under temptation to the world that are putting on US trials and heartaches, pains and frustrations. There are those in total loss. And, they are draining us even when we cannot see it fully.....

But, there is LIFE, and there is an ultimate example for us! I pray to be thankful for the experiences I have had, and to continue to shape the measure of my GRATITUDE.

I have thought several times in the weeks past....if I were to die today....what would my legacy be? Where would someone stop and point to something I have done and take something good from it for their own lives? I pray that the view I have--the hopeful faith my eye can see and translate in the lives of so so many around me every single day will be able to stay with those I have loved too. That everyone I call my friend, or who might someday call me a friend will be able to see, just as I see....just how alive, present and ACTIVE God is in our world, our lives, our hearts and our trials---and just how very good that is!

Today may have felt more like failure than success, but I end with God, and it feels perfect. Even failure can feel perfect.

I love you all so very much!!