An evening gone wrong.
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| The TaTa |
We have two sets of keys. One on our truck key and one set in Kenny's backpack. About two weeks ago we locked ourselves out and had to break the padlock. So we placed keys strategically and determined not to let it happen again. We also bought extra padlocks just in case.
Someone had needed our truck so we were driving the TaTa (a Jeep like vehicle that looks like (in Kenny's words) it was made for chasing elephants.) As we pulled up to our house Kenny said, I guess we don't have keys! I had thought this through earlier and said, you have the set in your backpack. We hunted and hunted. We cleaned out the back pack. NO KEYS!
We thought we knew where the truck was so we loaded our hungry, grouchy, tired children back into the TaTa and went looking for it. Never had the bumps seemed so many on our dirt roads. Thankfully we had bought Fan ice (frozen yogurt) and bananas so our children snacked on them.
When we arrived at the place we thought our truck was, our hearts sank when we saw no truck! Kenny went and asked some men if they know who has it and where it is. They gave him the number of the man driving it but said he had run to Takoradi, an hour and a half away. Sure enough, upon calling him, he was still a good hour from home. By now it was almost 8 and waiting an hour wasn't very appealing.
We headed home the bumpy road once more, swinging in at the shop for a bolt cutters. While I was sitting, waiting for hubby to find it, I felt like banging my head on a wall. Why tonight of all nights? We were all exhausted. Our extra padlocks, so cleverly purchased just in case, were still in the pickup. We were going to end up sleeping in an unlocked house. The children were still tired, hot, grouchy, and hungry. (Fan Ice isn't the most filling, besides I didn't let them have too much. We didn't need someone puking yet!) Why did they need "our" truck anyway? Why couldn't they just use this old Tata and leave us alone? I guess the children weren't the only ones grouchy anymore!
We humped and bumped all the way back to our house. Kenny tried cutting the lock. And tried and tried. I held my phone as a flash light. Brent cried for milk. Austin offered advice. Kelsey complained the bags she had lugged to the door were heavy. ( I told her set them down! It's going to be awhile!) Just when we were about to give up, it gave and we were in!! Praise the Lord!!
One of the first things we did was hunt for that set of missing keys. A lot of good it was going to do us now! It was nowhere to be found! But we did discover the padlocks we had purchased. Kenny had brought them in and stored them in a desk drawer and for got about it.
I scurried around and made a light supper. Kenny hauled our purchases inside. Brent was still very grouchy so we put him in the tub. It not only cooled him off but entertained him as well.
We had purchased water and when Kenny carried the last one in we discovered it had sprung a leak. There was a sharp latch in the back of the TaTa that had poked a hole in it. Now we had a 5 gallon jug of water dripping everywhere. The leak was on the bottom so Kenny opened it and put it on our water cooler. That didn't work so well. The leak allowed the air in and so the water came shooting out. Now we had a bigger problem. It was open at the top and had a leak in the bottom. But I guess the Lord works in mysterious ways. Brent had drug an empty water bottle around the front of the house earlier, so when Kenny loaded the empties to take back at lunch time, it had gotten missed. I found it just before I left the house but since I was walking to the shop and didn't feel like carrying it (I knew I would have to carry Brent quite a bit) I left it on the porch. Now it was just what we needed! We used a funnel and transferred all the water to that jug. But this grouchy mom still had a bit of an attitude. Why tonight? Why, when it is bedtime, we haven't eaten yet, there is one boy in the tub, the others are starving and tired, I really didn't need this tonight!!
Even though I was exhausted, sleep was long in coming. I felt overwhelmed. Pressured. Discouraged.
But then the thought came clearly. Let your faith be bigger than your fear.
You see, what was troubling me most was that it felt like Satan is winning. It felt like he was one step ahead of me. I was fearful that I couldn't cope with this for the next three years.
We have never been good with keys and locks. Were we destined to do this every three weeks or so?
It felt like the last straw to my day. I just wanted to sit down and give up. I needed an old friend for a good chat over chocolate (I don't drink coffee, so I had to come up with a different treat.) And they are all so far away!!
It wasn't about all the mud puddles we needed to bump through, the keys we seemed to always be losing, the door that was going to have to be unlocked overnight (but then wasn't after all). It wasn't even about our truck, that isn't actually ours, being used by someone else.
It was about discouragement. It was about Satan taking my focus off others and helping me dwell on my own pitiful self. It was about who I was going to live for that evening and the next day and the next year and the rest of my life. It was about letting my faith carry me through a rough evening, that, in reality, wasn't that bad. Nobody got hurt, needed to go to the ER, died, you get the picture. It was about me, coming to the end of myself and just clinging to faith in God.
The future looks a bit scary right now, for reasons other than padlocks and lost keys, but if I cling to God, I can rest, because he has given me many promises to always be near me.
The next morning I woke, still a bit discouraged and fearful. My phone sends me a Bible verse every morning and before I looked at it I prayed that it would inspire me. And this is what it was:
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