The Little Things

Today was a really stressful day in a lot of ways. I had a pretty bad headache all day, and I had reached my limit of ranch tensions and drama. However, God gave me a lot of little things to get through the day. For starters, Steph's almost three-year-old daughter Maggie came in to work with her today, and I got to play with her for about half an hour. It was so fun to spend time with a little person again and hear the giggles and shrieks of delight. Four of the guests, two couples from Texas, have been so kind and delightful to serve, and today they asked me questions about my family, which meant to me that they really cared and were interested in me. After dinner, the wives gave me hugs and said, "You tell your mama that we hugged you--if my kids were working here, I'd want a mama to hug them for me." Dace told me he's glad I'm working here and said I should hang out with him sometime. That went a long way for my fear of authority thing. I was able to give Tom a hug when he needed one. My two friends from Laramie are coming to visit tomorrow, and I am so looking forward to some quality time with them. Rob didn't work dinner tonight, which always means less stress. And to top it off, Matt made his famous Slap-Your-Mama-In-the-Face-This-Dessert-Rocks banana bread dessert. YUM. Glimmers of God's love for me shining through the dark clouds.

Here are some really good thoughts from my friend Jessica's blog that exactly sum up the way I feel. I am reproducing this without permission, so Jess, please don't sue me, okay?

"I’m the kind of person that hates learning experientially, that is, by falling on my face. But at the same time I know that God can teach me so much when I’m lying flat, with my face in the mud.
So many times when I ask God to teach me something, or to grow me in some way, I half expect him to pass along some good reading material on the subject, perhaps facilitate some good discussion with trusted friends, and maybe throw in a moment of spiritual enlightenment. God can work in these ways. However, he doesn’t always package things in an easy-to-digest parcel.
Many times when I expect to be taught the easy way, the hands-off way, the way that protects Jessica’s pride, God wallops me with a type of learning that I can only describe as being intensely humbling and incredibly painful. Its not painful because God is hurting me; its painful because of the harm I have already caused myself. The smack on the hand is never as painful as the realization that you’re wrong, that you’ve made a mistake. That’s how pride gets you."

Good stuff, Jess. Thanks for summarizing my thoughts for me.