Domino Days

The calendar's full. It had been since the close of summer. Really, I felt overjoyed at the prospect of it all; overjoyed to invite the guests in and feed them, coffee them, laugh with little ones and in my mind the windows all sparkle and floors glisten and children have neat and tidy hair.

Along comes the unexpected. A frozen air conditioning unit. The first domino in the effect. Workers cutting into sheet rock and hallways missing flooring. That's okay. I can roll and for the first round I do; and then....... the rest of the domino's fall and mis-align with my perfect ideal. I teeter on the edge....anger and frustration. I want perfection and I've learned from the multitude of my days that I'll not find it here and I am learning.....joy in the sojourn.

Romans 7:19 TNIV

My body twitches as if full of excessive coffee and my heart burns as it pumps the too thick blood through my veins. My mind reasons to embrace it all but how do I calm the frantic screaming, the reality of the unknown. I have not thought out every possible situation and I have not prepared for the un-preparable, unimaginable.

I fight a natural response to a mad emotional rant and cling to my reason. I do not want a sterile, predictable existence. Drone days.  No adventure, no spontaneity.  But why does my body rebel from the inside out when domino's fall in wrong directions?

So, the fam wildly packs up to escape the cell damaging, oil-based fumes and sends our furry beast to family #2 who loves him in our absence and in the process...

I am not kind to the man I hold dear. There is no one to blame for the mess that has become my perfect calendar, so he bears the full force of my internal battle. He responds with a gentle heart, putting the fallen pieces back into some kind of order and I am moved by his love for me and I again grasp for reason. I fall to my knees asking God to realign me when I have no control over the domino's.

On to the hardest fun ever had. Impromptu, no expectations and...to me the more challenging....no preparation. Meals out while produce goes bad in the frig. Friday morn, waving good-bye to said man, whose onto work while we live this impromptu vaca. Lonely without him we frolic and reunite later in the 'Happiest Place on Earth' where we are told by the offspring that this is our best vacation ever. The man and I shake our heads in disbelief and with deep breathes we clasp hands, choose joy and know God has been here. I was the domino moved to the path of reason and God is pleased.

So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in me waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man am I! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Romans 7:21-25