Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Being Set Up

Lately for obvious reasons, I don't have time to post much besides pictures (which are obviously the most exciting and important part of this blog), but several things have happened the past few days that made me feel compelled to share. Not only do I not have time to POST, but sometimes it feels that I don't have TIME. Period. I know things are still adjusting, and routine will come. Eventually. So with the rush of life, I sometimes feel like God gets the "short end of the stick." Shockingly, I am still on track with reading my bible through for this year, but I will admit that it's been at night with my eyes rolling back on more than a few since May.

Anyway, I digress. As I was saying, here I am doing my thing: feeding, changing, transporting, disciplining (the 4 year old), loving, and so on and so forth. Sage comes in one morning while I was still asleep to wake me up for the day. She's talking for a second when all of a sudden, she goes, "Mommy! A bug!" This could be a number of things: lint, a shadow, a fly...you just never know. But this time, crawling on my headboard right next to where my head was, was a wasp that was alive and well. I got it, and it occurred to me, "Wow. Had she not come in there right when she did, there's a very good chance that I would have gotten stung. Thank you, God." Small? Not to me. I've never been stung by anything, and I didn't want to start, especially in a dead sleep.

The next day, 2 days before Travis was to leave for Michigan, Sage wanted to play in her playroom. We hadn't been in there in quite a while, so we all went to play. Actually, Sage was playing while we were talking. She was "cooking" in her kitchen, and she brought Travis a tray with play food on it. That's when I saw IT. Let me say here that the weekend before, Travis goes, "I don't want to scare you, but this morning when I brought Mayer in, he started growling at the fish tank. He NEVER does that, so he saw something. I looked everywhere but couldn't find anything, but we might have a mouse." I was like, "WHAT?!"

Fast forward back to the playroom. What I saw was mouse droppings. Then I started to see it more. I started to cry. I said, "You've got to find this thing NOW. You cannot leave this house with that thing in here, or I'm out of here. I will NOT stay here with a mouse." It actually caused quite a fuss. He said that he'd do the best he could, but he HAD to leave on Saturday. I even brought Mayer in to see if he could find it. He was just happy to be inside, but Travis did find evidence of its roaming through our home. Thankfully and surprisingly, the mouse did not go upstairs. Travis even tried to say, "You know, there's not a ton of stuff everywhere, so maybe he just wandered through and left." I said, "Um, nice try. I know it's still in here."

So, Travis and Sage went to Walmart to get traps. I refused to take my shoes off. I was so paranoid. So I prayed, "God, I know that your word says for us to 'cast our cares on you because you care for us.' This is a trivial matter to some, like TRAVIS, but this REALLY bothers me, so I'm asking that he catches this thing while he is still HERE. So that has to be tonight. Please don't let me see it, touch it, or have to be a part of it in any way, shape or form." Travis came home and set 10 traps with cheese in them all through the house. That night, I googled about catching mice, which was a bad idea. It talked about all the diseases they carry, how they can get the food out of a trap without being killed, how they breed within days, how there is more than one usually... I was panicking. I slept HORRIBLY that night thinking it was crawling on me and imagining it running all through my dishes and food. I prayed ALL NIGHT. Was I afraid of the mouse? No, not really. It was just gross. I like to be clean and sanitary, and mice just aren't either of those things.

So, at 6 the next morning Travis walked into the bedroom (he leaves for work early), and said, "Are you getting up?" I was still half-way asleep when he goes, "I got your mouse, BABY!" and held up a trap with a very gross, very dead mouse in it. I only saw a shadow and why he thought I'd need to see it, I don't know. But I IMMEDIATELY thanked God. He answered my prayer EXACTLY how I prayed it. I didn't have to see it (no thanks to Travis on that one), touch it, dispose of it, or worry about it anymore. I'm so glad that God isn't like a judge that says, "Get that case out of my courtroom." for what would be considered trivial requests by some people. I had 3 cats on the way if it wasn't caught, haha! And had Sage not mentioned playing in her playroom, who knows when we would have realized it was in our home! The thought of that makes me shiver. Gross.

Okay, lastly and most recently was just 2 days ago. Travis was still in Michigan; Sage was at school. It was just me and Jaggar at home. He had been asleep in his carseat and had just woken up, but I had a bill to put in the mailbox. Let me say here that I leave him in his seat or swing ALL THE TIME when I run outside for just a second. It's just easier that way when he's content. For some reason, I picked him up and said, "Want to go to the mailbox?" Off we went and as soon as I shut the door, I said, "Oh my god" then immediately, "THANK YOU, GOD, that I have the baby!" I had locked myself out of the house. I have NEVER done that in 5 years of living here and of all the times I could do it, this was the worst. My only other key was in Michigan.

I walked to the back of the house wondering if maybe, just maybe, I'd left one of those doors unlocked, but I knew I hadn't. With that confirmed, I went to the neighbor's house, who happened to be home because she was sick. She let me use her phone and had given me the number to the police station, who told me that they don't break in houses. I'd have to call a locksmith. I called the locksmith. Voicemail. Not to mention, they'd charge me a pretty penny to open the door. I had no windows unlocked, no extra key hidden, no car key, no cell phone. Nothing. I was on the verge of tears. What in the world was I going to do? So I called Travis, who was in a live video shoot. He whispered, "Call my mom and Tim. They have that key they borrowed." WHAT?! When we had gone to Kentucky for the fair, Travis's mom and Tim had gotten our mail so they had a key. But I could have SWORN we had gotten it back. Travis said, "No, they were going to give it back, but I just told them to hang onto it 'just in case.'" Again, I could have cried tears of relief this time. REALLY? Are you SURE? I kept asking. So I called Tim. They live about 20 minutes away in Heflin, but they both work here in Oxford. I explained what had happened and not only did Tim have the key, but he had it in his truck HERE in Oxford. How awesome is that? Each and every little thing that day (and for weeks really with Travis telling them to keep the key) was God setting things up for me to have the best outcome, the most important one being that I had carried Jaggar out with me. After all, I was outside for a good 45 minutes to an hour. All this just made me think, "Wow, the Lord is really setting things up in my favor." It makes me wonder what all is happening or sometimes DIDN'T happen to protect me and get me in the right place at the right time. You just never know, but I do know He's always setting me up in the right place at the right time for the right thing. Very cool.

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