You know when you go to the store, and there's some lady there with kids who are just out of control? She's got a crying baby, and her kids are loud and keep touching (or hitting) the merchandise? Yeah, on Saturday, that lady was me. We were at the Garden Center at Lowe's (thankfully it was outside with plants, and not inside, say, Pier 1). Noah was tired and fussy, and the girls would NOT hold on to the cart. They had to touch every single plant we came across. And then, the kicker: I had to leave the cart in an aisle while I walked 5 feet away to look at something, and I told them to stay there and hold on to the cart. So I go to look at this plant, hear this banging noise, turn around, and my children are HITTING a fountain, banging on it like it's a drum. Luckily it's a plastic in-ground fountain and not breakable, but still! What would possess a child to HIT a fountain?!? So I walked back to them, threatened their lives, walked back to my plant again for a minute (trying to figure out what it was -- it wasn't labeled) and when I looked up again, Chloe's sitting on a pallet dangerously near some Pansies and Halle's flailing her arms and legs in some sort of crazed dance. (Keep in mind, Noah's fussing and crying at the same time.) I decided it was time to go home and forget the plants.

Today I was supposed to take Chloe to the dentist (about an hour away) to finish getting caps on her teeth. We were going to leave around 8:15, and at about 8:05, after Chloe had eaten breakfast, I remembered she wasn't supposed to have anything to eat or drink this morning. So we had to reschedule. I hate things like that. They make me feel like I have no brain. I wonder if God has purposes in things like that. Like, is there a reason I forgot? Or is it just one of those things? I like to make it all mystical, like, if we had gone, there would have been this bad thing that happened, and God saved us from it by making me forget about the food thing. But that seems a little melodramatic. I think it's more likely that I just have fuzzy-brain and God's purposes are accomplished in spite of my mistakes. Is that pessimistic?

On a seemingly totally unrelated note, I really liked the following article. Read it. It's long, so give yourself some time. Two of the things that struck me most were how different our priorities are from God's. "...we will continue to be disappointed in him until our value system lines up with his, until we value the eternal life of our souls more than the limited life of our mortal bodies, until we understand that God's primary agenda is kingdom building. It may cost us our very lives, and he is okay with that." Talk about paradigm shifts. The other thing that stuck with me was this: "Satan brings suffering to diminish our faith, he brings temptation to deceive us, and he brings doubt about God's love and goodness to estrange us from God. But since Jesus prayed for us, asking his Father to protect us from the Evil One, we are not at Satan's mercy. God has answered the prayer of Jesus with a resounding Yes! While Satan may win a battle or two in the life of the believer, he will never win the war against the soul. Jesus has prayed for his own, and we are protected." I will face suffering, tempation, and doubt. These things will come. But because of God's protection, they will NOT have the final victory. That is my hope; not that I will have perfectly behaved children, or will remember all the things I'm supposed to. I catch myself expecting God to "protect" me from these trivial things, and I think that just highlights how self-focused I am. This article was a good reminder that God's purposes are bigger and longer-lasting; that I focus on the seen, but He focuses on the unseen. It's good to step outside of myself and get a teeny-tiny glimpse of things through His eyes.