Last week was spent camping in the remote mountains of northern Potter County, Pennsylvania where we were treated to the most spectacular of nature walks and sighted deer, many different reptiles and amphibians, including the sweet tempered red eft, many different birds, including purple martins, and we even heard a turkey (the day before and the day AFTER its season closed *smirk*).  When we weren’t on a nature walk, nature came to us, like in the form of this Mourning Cloak that flew in the driver’s side window and landed on my head as I turned off Route 49.   

Yes, I freaked…and knocked it to the floor mat, then pulled over to see what had caused such commotion and scooped up the stunned butterfly in the coffee cup that my husband left in my truck when fishing that morning.   But, this was not what unnerved our nature walks.  It was the fresh tracks on the old logging trail that rounds behind the cabin.  Just as we started off on our adventure I saw this:

It must be a bear track I thought and I began to be a little nervous since I was alone in the wilderness with 4 children under 8, one of whom was riding in the backpack.  I noticed nearby an identical track, only smaller.  Great.  Momma and cubs.   Then about 15 feet away, I noticed this track. 

Uh, wait this looks more like a bear, and it is wider, about 6" across.  What could the other have been? When we returned I consulted my best field guide, a 1950s that is written by a true naturalist and combines prose and poetry, his personal opinions, and scientific fact in one wonderfully written field guide.  (*whispers* sometimes I actually read this field guide…for fun.)  Well there was only one animal that makes a track this size and shape:  the mountain lion.  The problem here is the Commission denies their existence in PA.  The Commission claims that the last known pair of wild mountain lions was killed in Clinton County in 1871. Then a mountain lion was killed by a hunter in Potter County in 1967 and the Commission claimed that animal was an escaped pet.  You know how many pet mountain lions get out and roam the neighborhood, right?  I could email the commission and show them my track but then what?  They could claim it is a declawed bear with a missing toe, perhaps an escaped pet, walking up the trail with his friend the bobcat.   

There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven. - Ecclesiastes 3:1

What about when that season comes to an end?  Winter warms and melts into spring.  Spring warms and soaks the earth gradually getting warmer and dries into summer.  The summer sun dries and cracks the ground until the autumn frost kills the flora and the leaves fall to the ground covering what is left of the green with a brown blanket. All the things of the previous season disappear with the new: the snow, the mud, the blooms, the leaves, each giving way to the next without resistance.

The seasons seem to move along changing sometimes subtly into the next and other times more drastically, like the first killing frost of autumn that turns greens to browns and causes the trees that were a yellow and red haze yesterday to stand bare against the clear blue sky. 

Sometimes we hold on to a season, it seems to linger, allowing us to wear our flip flops well into November.  That is, until it becomes uncomfortable enough for us to change.  Sometimes we hold on to the seasons of our lives that way, especially the ones that are comfortable and easy going or the ones that are cozy and warm.  Its like not being quite ready to shed that old wool sweater and give up our cozy place by the fireside to feel the warm spring sun on our skin. Do we hold on because it is comfy or do we not realize that old sweater has become itchy?  Either way, we know we need to shed that old wool to feel the warmth of the spring sunshine. 

Saturday morning we awoke and my husband went fishing and I had some time to watch the birds, journal and pray before the kids awoke.  While journaling, my husband calls me.  He found 4 chairs on the roadside AND he was agreeable to picking them up for me.  We are desperately in need of kitchen chairs being that we only have 2 and a long bench.  He brought them home and one was an odd chair, they were not really my style (very 70s pine).  After breakfast we headed out into the yard.  Yesterday was in the high 70s and not a single cloud.  After 2 months of almost all rain and clouds I needed that…badly. 

Whilst thinking about what to do with the chairs, I began digging up the yard to level out that area, plant some things and put down some grass.  I began to find that someone had buried garbage.  I got curious and distracted by pretending to be an archeologist.  I determined that I would not make a good archeologist because I shoveled right through a ceramic something.  By this time I had a hole about 6’ X 3’ and 3’ deep.  I decided to bury some of the scrap wood my husband had piled next to the shed that he’d been meaning to take to the dump for the past 2 years.  Then I shoveled all the dirt back over and leveled it out and planted.  By that time I had determined that I would paint the chairs black and that they would be very nice like that.  So I cleaned up the chairs and began painting.  I got a coat on 2 chairs and ran out of paint. 

My husband came home from fishing and had caught 2 trout, one of which was tagged.  Even after removing the tag, the fish was alive and kicking.  So we put him in our pond and revived him.  The girls named him Nemo.  Nemo seeped very happy.  That is until, unbeknownst to us, Nemo jumped out of the pond, landing on the rocks in the sun, effectively committing suicide.  *sigh*, oh Nemo, being a big fish in a small pond isn’t that bad of a place to be.  Nemo was buried under one of our rose bushes.  My husband noticed there was another chair out so I walked down to check and would you just know it…it matched!  Now we have 4 matching chairs.   

My husband then took my 20 year old truck to inspection and it PASSED.  It better pass bc we did about $800 worth of work to it, but all the same, it passed.  He fixed his truck too so that will pass next week.  He also fixed my trellis which bc the parts that stick in the ground got snapped off during a bad wind storm last spring and its been crooked ever since.  He also drilled the holes in the aluminum tent poles that I salvaged to fix my umbrella style clothesline, so I fixed the clothesline and restrung it, which was no small task. Then I planted lettuce garden and a tea garden while the temperature rose.  The girls ended up in the kiddie pool splashing around.  That kept them contained and busy. 

Afterwards my husband announced that our tax return had been wired into our account and this is the first year that it was not already slated to pay something or another.  He suggested going out to eat but then I suggested he go buy a new grill and something special to go on it, and while he was picking up the grill, he could pick me up some more paint to finish up those chairs.

He returned with a grill, porterhouse steaks and shrimp, so we had that with salad and sweet potatoes for supper.  Putting together the grill took him a little longer than he’d planned but I was able to get the chairs painted.  We threw the bone to our dog, Pax. 

After church Sunday, still our old church, and I honestly still do not want to leave but that is a story for another day, we went to the Somerset Free4All.  I scored bigtime:  Sully from Monster’s Inc. (Tabi’s favorite movie), set of twin sheets NWT, open package containing 2 ruffled 2t panties, 2 24 month swimsuits, cool throw pillow NWT, a wool sweater, some beaded hemp necklaces, brand new dishtowel, sewing box (the kind that hinges and folds open and out on both sides, also brandy new), 2 binders (a bit dusty but needed),  2 sets water wings, plastic shoebox NWT, travel mug NWT, water bottles for the girls, a laminated practice writing tablet, visible woman anatomy kit with option parts to simulate pregnancy (not yet put together and sealed in plastic, this is very cool but I think we will wait until winter to do it, maybe even next year bc it will take lots of supervision), 6 boxes green dye we will use to revive some curtains, and a bunch of books and some classical music tapes (bc the Z doesn’t have a cd player).

“Its all about the lost.  We need to reach the lost.”

“Invite your neighbor to church.”

“We need programs to reach people with the Gospel.  Doing stuff for them is fine but we need to reach them with the Gospel.”

“I need to get fed on Sunday morning.  It’s the pastor’s job to feed his sheep.”

*sigh* purpose driven this and the latest that and being contagious.  As these things filter into my both ears to a noise level, my spinning mind nearly drowning out that quiet voice.  Christianese buzzwords flying, meaning NOTHING!

The more words the less the meaning and how does that profit anyone? – Ecclesiastes 6:11

Shouldn't we just love people, unselfishly filling whatever need we see?  

God's word says: 

He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?" declares the Lord. - Jeremiah 22:16

And also:

This is how we know what love is:  Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.  And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.  If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?  Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.   (1 John 3:16-18)

It seems that evangelism has become synonymous with increasing the numbers at your local church; a Sunday morning headcount of sorts. Shouldn't we just be seeing people's needs and looking for a way to fill them and telling them what God has done for us?  Showing them a lifestyle that is NOT American pop-culture, showing them that our values are not monetary, showing them that our morals are not compromised, giving all we have to follow Him?  Won't that more effectively make disciples?   It worked for the apostles, maybe it will work for us:

All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. (Acts 2:45-47)

So I am left wondering, is this about seeking the Kingdom or is this about numbers on Sunday morning?  Is this a sense of entitlement, that we should be sowing AND reaping, forget about the water and sunshine?   I suspect the low numbers on Sunday have a lot more to do with apathy and complacency, with stepping over the homeless guy on the way to mail your check to your sponsored child, with selfishly storing up earthly treasure, with standing on common sense instead of faith.

Okay, so this post is going to upset its share of people.  I am truly wondering where the Christian church got the idea that we ought to invite the unsaved to church?  That somehow, they will be saved if only they would come to church.  Like the Holy Spirit is just waiting in a pew somewhere to change the heart of the first unsaved person to enter through the church doors.  I have done this myself and as I explore these thoughts I am convicted.  Now, the church is the body of Christ and each of us are a part.  Even the least of all parts, say the pinky toe, is still an important and part and needed for the body on a whole to function properly.  Okay, stay with me here…say include the member of another body, one not made in the image of God, say we attach the hoof of a pig instead of the little pinky toe, then what?  Could it be that this is what has caused the church body to be so ineffective? 

The Great Commission charges that we GO and make disciples.  We are not instructed to invite them into our sterile environment.   Jesus went to the home of Matthew the tax collection and ate in the company of sinners.  He did not bring them to the temple to be taught. 

We call ourselves the Evangelical Church yet we think we are doing our part in telling the good news to invite our friends or neighbors to church.   When was the last time you shared with them what Christ has done for you that morning?  Have you made disciples?  Have you told them what it means to follow Him?  I have fallen short and I suspect that I have had my fair share of pearls trampled by swine.

Just when I think I am getting somewhere in my walk God opens my eyes a little more and shows me that I have so much further to go.  Its like getting a new prescription for my glasses.  All the sudden I realize that the things I thought I saw so clearly look a bit different and it is not all that comfortable.   As a new Christian I was quickly enamored by the Cardboard Cutout Christian (C3) , you know, the Christian that does all those things a Christian should do – go to church, join a Bible study, read the Bible, find some way to serve at the local church, looking good and righteous the whole time doing it.  So when I started seeking I put on my Sunday clothes and my Sunday face and there I sat in church all smiling when inside I was a disaster and my life was like a potential train wreck spiraling out of control.   This was easy and familiar; it reminded me of the church I had grown up in.  For a while I sat among other C3s with their false smiles plastered across their faces and exchanged pleasantries such as “how was your week?”, “oh, just fine”.  Yes, just fine indeed.  Then God opened my eyes a little more.  He revealed three words to me:  Keep. It. Real.  Hmm…keep it real?  What?!?  I began to squirm in my seat and the other Cardboard Cutouts began to stare.  Squirming is not acceptable behavior for Cardboard Cutouts, and sadly, neither are relationships.  This is where my true relationship with my Savior began.  Years gone by and I’ve just been given another pair of godly glasses.  As my vision came into focus I saw Be Who You Are and I thought, man is this going to upset some people.

Friday afternoon and an hour to go before S’s bio-father picks her up for the long weekend.  As common courtesy, he could tell me when he is taking her out of state, but it is not long before she informed me that he is taking her to Delaware.   Anyway, I decide to make cookies.  She asks if she may bring one with her to her father’s and I consent.  She then asks to bring two and I agree.  Then she asks for 6.  She explains to me that it is her Uncle’s graduation and he is now a nurse and everybody is making something.  I am thinking this is something she should be doing with her bio-father’s gf.  (Besides, this uncle is truly not one of my favorite people and I cringe.)  However, in the back of my mind I am hearing “love your enemies” and I consent to the 6 cookies.  Then she asks for 12.  See there might be a lot of people there and everyone will want a cookie.   I pack a dozen cookies in her bag for her to bring.  This morning I am reminded of that verse in Isaiah, “He gently leads those with young”.  Yes, and he is leading me one cookie at a time. 

This past week I organized the girls’ clothing.  I went through each size and got rid of the excess – too many of one thing (who needs 20 pair of jeans in one size?), stuff deemed inappropriate, stuff that just doesn’t fit any of their body types, stuff that is just plain strange, stuff stained beyond recognition and some stuff I that looked like it was from the 80s.  Some got tossed, some got freecycled.  God reminded me of how he blesses those who are obedient to Him.    We had an abundance of size 6 and 4 clothes, more than my girls could ever wear!  I knew it was poor stewardship to be holding on to all these clothes.  I bagged them up and listed them on freecycle.  I woman contacted me asking for them for her friend.  She told me her friend’s ex-husband is keeping her 4 year old’s clothes and sending her home in a size 2.  How greatly amusing to learn that there are other people that do this to their children!  I wrote her back to say she could have the clothes, and oh, by the way, my 7 year old’s bio-father sends her home in size 4s.  What a privilege that God allowed me to bless someone who has the same struggles as I and simultaneously put this in its proper perspective.

Today is the first real spring day.  It is 65 and sunny and the crocuses and snowdrops are in bloom.   It is bittersweet, however, as I realized that I am no longer smelling the roses.  Specifically, I am no longer going to be able to smell my rose scented geranium that Schuyler got me for mother’s day 5 years ago.  For 4 years I faithfully took cuttings and rooted them to take in before frost.  This last year I did not.  Being on bedrest since the end of August and not coming home from the hospital till November, I completely forgot about this sweet little plant till now. 

She watches over the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.  – Proverbs 31:27 NKJ

Ms. P31 did not taste the bread of idleness and it’s a good thing because I believe that the bread of idleness contains the yeast of the Pharisees.  The Apostle Paul instructs the Thessalonians, “We hear that some among you are idle.  They are not busy; they are busy-bodies.  Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread they eat.” (2 Thessalonians 3:11-13 NIV).  Yet I have found myself tasting the bread of idleness and becoming concerned over what my husband is not doing.  When his clothes are in a pile on the bathroom floor, or papers left on the kitchen table, or countless other things are left undone, I can easily allow anger to build up resentments over what he should have done.  That is, instead of just doing whatever the task is, and being done with it, I taste the bread of idleness.   Instead of becoming busy, I become a busybody.  Jesus exposed the hypocrisy of the Pharisees -- the outside of their cup was clean yet the inside was filthy.   When we become riled up and idle instead of settling down and earning, we are being hypocrites in our belief in our Lord Jesus Christ.  Outwardly, we are godly women but the inside of our cup is grimy with self-indulgence.  Be forewarned, just as a little yeast works its way through the entire loaf of bread, the bread of idleness works its way through your entire house. 

I opened the cabinet to get out the large Rubbermaid container for our homemade granola.  CRASH!  Excited squeals erupted from the kitchen table, “Mom got doomed!”  Anything container that did not have a matching lid has been tossed.  All lids not fitting on any containers were tossed.  All containers that previously contained sour cream, sherbet, ricotta cheese and the like were tossed.  Now to find a way to store all those little lids for the half cup sized containers we use so frequently.  These little guys are the source of some major doom.  They are great cost savers (especially since we purchased 30 of them for $1 at the thrift shop) for people like me who refuse to support consumerism through pre-packaged foods.  We use them to make individual servings of jello and pudding for park days, field trips, and my husband’s lunch.  I have been sending him with carrot sticks in one and ranch dressing in another.  Individual portions of just about anything can be conveniently served up in one of these and every time I do so its one on the board for Mom, zilch for Corporate America.

Last week my daughter was unloading the dishwasher, helped by her younger sister.  I am listening from the living room as I nurse the baby.  “Here, Lynds.  Put this in the Doom Cabinet.”  The what? I am thinking.  CRASH!  Oh.  That must be the doom cabinet, I think to myself, the place where assorted and never matching pieces of gladware and the like are stored.  And that was the beginning of God’s call to me to declutter and beautify our home.  I am getting rid of stuff we do not need.  Lots of stuff.  Tons of stuff.    My 8 weeks of bedrest, followed by 2 weeks of hospitalization, followed by running down there every day for a month left our home in shambles.  As I am scrubbing, tossing and painting God speaks to me.  He tells me that it is good that I am doing this, but what about the clutter in my mind and heart?  That has already been washed clean by the blood of His son, yet I continue to hold on to it.  It is time also to rid my heart and mind of all the things I have seen and experienced before I knew Him.

Contentment is having options.  To be at the mercy of circumstance and to try to force contentment only pushes one into further discontentment.  But, ah…to have options! To make a choice, be it profitable or poor, brings forth contentment.  How often do we fall victim to our circumstances when, unbeknownst to us, it is our choice?  How often do we not realize that our reactions to our circumstances are indeed a choice?  This morning I awoke to having one log.  Yes, one log left, in addition to the ones too knotty to split that is.  With a quarter tank oil and snow in the forecast I was feeling rather irritated.  I began to blame my husband for not getting us enough wood to last the winter and that we couldn’t afford to fill the oil tank right now.  Then, I chose to go next store and take the branches our neighbor offered us when he cut them in the spring.  I determined that anything an inch and over in diameter was worth taking to burn.   As I began to break them into woodstove sized pieces with my foot and I noticed that I began to feel good.  I was doing something other than wallowing in my circumstance.  Would these branches really carry us through till Saturday when my husband could pick up more wood?  Probably not.  Did I effectively solve the problem?  No.  What it did was busy my hands and my mind, not to mention burn quite a few calories (which was likely way more effective than the aerobic video that did not cause me to loose weight over two faithful months).  I was left with a pile of stuff I couldn’t break with my foot.  I was thinking of what to do when I spied the maul that I had gotten stuck yesterday in one of those logs too knotty to split.  Now for the lesson in physics: when branches are placed between two knotty logs and struck with a maul, dried wood, up to around 4” in diameter will break.  The smaller the diameter of the branch, the higher and further it flies when struck with a maul.   Probability dictates that I am quite fortunate that I neither broke a window, nor bonked myself in the head.  Either way, choosing my response instead just reacting did wonders for my spirit.    

This morning Schuyler came to recite her Latin phrase, which was, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”.  Creative and mischievous as usual, she made it her own statement as she proudly recited, “In principio creavit Deus caelum et cetera”.  In the beginning, God created the heavens and the rest.  That just about sums it up, doesn’t it?  Sure, we know that God created the heavens and the earth, but do we really remember God in all the rest?  Do we remember the rest when the clerk in the store treats us rudely, or when the person on the highway cuts us off?  Do we remember that our own children are part of the rest when they naughty and irritating?  Dare I mention our spouses?  Whether we are careless with our words and actions, with our possessions and desires, or with our homes and the outdoors, we are forgetting the rest. 

It was early morning in early May 2005.  I had just dropped my husband off at work and my three girls were sleeping in the back seat.  My marriage was on the brink.  There was a reason my husband could not drive himself to work, and it was not a good reason.  I heard a voice.  It was quiet but clear; certainly not a whisper.   The voice said, “The baby is Evangeline Ember”.  “Oh boy do I need more sleep”, I thought and yawned.  Again, “the baby is Evangeline Ember”.  Some imagination I have…what kind of a name is that?  And…what baby?  “Evangeline.  Ember.  Westermann.”  Chills ran up and down my arms.  There is no way I’m pregnant.  By noon that day I could no longer cope with this new information and I find myself dragging three little ones behind me into the pharmacy for a pregnancy test.  Then, locked in the bathroom with the customer service rep from EPT on the phone, I am asking “are you sure that’s what it means”?  Of course she’s sure, they manufactures these stupid things.  I look up the name on the internet and it means, “like an angel glowing”.  Wow.  I have two hours to make it to the courthouse to face Schuyler’s bio-father and beg for continued supervised visits.  I lost.

July 2005 is my 20 week my ultrasound appointment.  My three girls are lined up on the bench anxiously awaiting their chance to meet their new sister and the technician has remarked already about how well behaved they are.  She can see there is something different in our family.  It is Christ she sees in us.  She asks me if I want to know the baby’s gender.  Before I can open my mouth, my eldest, who is 6, responds, “Oh no thank you, we already know it’s a girl.  God told Mommy.”  I can see she is thinking, what are the chances, this lady is sitting here with three girls already.  “That’s nice…" she starts to say as she zooms in on the area, and she confirms, another girl.  Two weeks later, at 22 weeks I am having complications and home on bed rest with a toddler in diapers, a three year old and a six year old homeschooled soon to be second grader.   And oh, remember the issues with my husband?  They just got worse…a lot worse.  The next ten weeks were an all time low.  I have never been so alone, so isolated nor so distressed.  The situation with my eldest’s bio-father had gotten to an all time new level of ugly and the family courts and DYFS failed her. 

In October, at 30 weeks I awoke at 4 am to discover that I had broken my water.  So, I drive myself, husband and two of my children to the hospital, only to be transferred by ambulance to another hospital about an hour from home.  My husband is still unable to drive.  I am told I will have the baby within 24-48 hours.  That is what happens 90% of the time.  My heart grew heavy that I would end up having the baby without my husband.  He spends the next two weeks home from work with the girls.  There is nothing like two weeks with three children under 7 to give a man a new perspective.  Two weeks later I am still pregnant and sitting in a puddle.  Evangeline is still growing and developing.  Finally my husband’s driving privilege is restored and the next day I awoke in labor.  Thanks to the inexperience of the resident, and that they transferred me to a university hospital, I continued in labor with a pitocen drip for another 27 hours before Evangeline makes her entry into the world.  I want to push but have to wait for them to populate the room with someone from every department of the hospital.  Yeah, it’s a regular party in there.  They keep asking me if a training so and so can come in and watch.  I really don’t care if it is on prime-time TV at this point.  I am in pain.  The big-shot doctor pops in and comments that he doesn’t “know why women chose to do this to themselves when the epidural is so readily available”.  I had to repent of my thoughts of him.  Evangeline finally arrived weighing in at 3 lbs. 13 oz. and very unhappy.  So much for underdeveloped lungs I thought.  As soon as they removed my IV I hopped in the shower and walked to the NICU in the next building.  I hadn’t been up in 10 weeks and I sure was not waiting for a wheelchair.  I arrived just in time to see them extubate her and she did not require a c-pap, but went straight to room air.  I spent the next month going back and forth, pumping and trying to juggle the other three.  I was worn out physically, emotionally and spiritually.  My eldest remarked at dinner that she didn’t even want any Christmas gifts, that all she wanted was to have her sister home.  Two days later we were getting together some things for our church to take to the hurricane Katrina victims by tractor trailer.   I had a cabinet of gifts that I’d accumulated through the year and I felt convicted to give them all, even the gifts we’d gotten for our girls.  I asked my eldest what she’d like to do, keep them or send them on.  She chose to send them on but Lyndsee was a bit reluctant.  Schuyler told her that if you give something in Jesus name that he’d bless you with something even better.  She agreed to send her gifts as well.  I packed the gifts into the truck and dropped the girls off with my pastor’s wife so I could make my milk delivery and spend a bit of time with Evangeline.  I was just about to leave the NICU when the neonatologist stops me…to tell me he is going to do Evangeline’s discharge exam!  So I go back to get the girls and call my husband on the way.  He leaves work early so nothing else goes wrong before we get there.  We almost took her home so many times we were afraid something would happen last minute.  When I pick up the girls I tell them that their sister is coming home tonight.  Then we head to the collection point to drop off our gifts because I am going to have to switch vehicles with my husband to accommodate 2 boosters and 2 car seats.  Since our church doesn’t yet have a building, the local auto parts store is the collection point.  They each carry in a bag of gifts and my eldest tells the entire store that she is giving these things that were supposed to be hers for Christmas to the hurricane people and that God would give her something better, and he already did because her baby sister is coming home tonight.  I could not believe that my six year old just witnessed to an entire store of people.   And that, my dear friends, is the story of one who is like an angel glowing.

And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.   Luke 14:27 

About a month ago I was humbled a little bit more.  Thankfully God is graceful and has humbled me step by step a little bit at a time.  E came home from the hospital and we needed to fit another car seat which would never fit in my 1998 Jimmy.  What a cute little sporty truck my Jimmy was.  It carted the 4 of us around without fail for years.  With no money for another vehicle, God provided.  He provided a tank.  

Okay, so its not really a tank, but a 1989 Suburban, which L started calling “The Zerban”.  This morning I took the four kids in The Zerban to the Dollar Store in the pouring rain to get pencils.  Out from the Dollar Store we emerge, only to see that I had left the lights on.  No biggie, I think I am thankful we were only in there for 10 minutes.  I put the key in the driver’s side door as the rain continues to pour, and it won’t open. 

Why won’t it open?  Because Sunday morning, as we are all ready to go to church the latch on the door sticks, and then my husband locks it and cannot unlock it.  He is then trying to force the lock open with some sort of pliers, ripping off the little knob. My heart starts racing in panic at the thought of being stuck in the house with these four kids.  I mutter something about “you broke my door”, which promptly slams shut, I am hoping before my kids heard the expletive that fell from my husband’s lips.  Determined to find the cause, my husband begins to disassemble the door. Finally, armed with more tools, the inside panel removed, and screws and pieces everywhere, he comes to the conclusion that the lock is frozen, quite possibly from that ice storm we had the night before. 

So, there I stand with 4 little ones, getting soaked and trying to open the door.  Finally I direct them all around to the other side of the truck where we gain entry from the passenger’s side.  Okay, everyone is in.  Everyone is in their car seats, everyone is buckled properly.  I turn the key in the ignition and...nothing.  No roar of the motor, nothing.  I was only in there for 10 minutes, how could that have killed the battery?  I have had a tough morning and it was God alone who kept me calm and avoided a mommy meltdown.  I announced to the girls that we weren’t going anywhere because the truck wouldn’t start, which is met by a chorus of “call Dad”.  Yeah, Dad is gonna love this!  Yup, leave work and come rescue us because I forgot to shut off the stupid lights, which really shouldn’t have killed the battery in 10 minutes anyway.  The excited little voice of my eldest pipes up from the back seat, “Mom, I really think that God is going to use this for something!” Hey, The Zerban is not all that rusty anyway.