What A Day

Proverbs 19:21 Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails.

 

As you have read in past posts, I plan out my day the night before. I keep a composition notebook where I write out my schedule, plan dinner, decide what activities Addie will enjoy and participate in, what chores I intend to accomplish, and other notes that I need to keep in mind for my day.

However, as I learned in the teaching profession and also in motherhood, the first rule to keep in mind is be flexible. Why? Because sometimes, days like today happen and if you are not flexible, everything will fall apart.

I began my day at 6:00 and with God's help had my devotions and then accomplished all of my before-everyone-else-wakes-up things. I threw a load in the washer and moved on without another thought.

As the day moved along (according to "plan"), Addie and I went outside for bubbles and then back into her room to play. I went to put my load of laundry into the dryer and noticed that my clothes had not been spun in the spin cycle. A little odd, but I just moved along, squeezed out the excess water, threw the clothes in the dryer, and put another load into the washer. Big mistake! The skipped spin cycle was God alerting me that something was wrong with the washer. I went into Addie's room and we played, read books, and had a wonderful time.

My sister Faye went to the kitchen and saw what was happening. The washer had not recognized that the basin had already filled with water and was continuing to pour water into itself. Unfortunately, the water had now overflowed and covered the floor of my laundry room, dining room, and kitchen.

And I am not talking a little water.

I mean, a lot of water.

It was about 1/2 inch high. I thank God for my sister and her willingness to jump in and help. We opened the front and back doors and began sweeping the water out of the house. Between the two of us, we were able to get most of the water out.

I called my sister-in-law and asked if I could come by the office and pick up their jumbo wet vac. After vacuuming up the remainder of the water, I called my parents-in-law. Besides letting them know about our adventure and asking to use their washer and dryer to wash all of my towels that had ended up on the floor, I also wanted to tell my mom-in-law how incredibly brilliant she is. When they built their house, my mom-in-law made sure that her laundry room was built lower than the rest of the house and had the floor slope to a drain...just in case her washer ever overflowed. Believe it or not, in her 40 years of marriage, that has never happened to her, but she planned for it anyway.

Needless to say, I didn't have the day that I planned to have. But, you know what? I am okay with that. I know that God is in control of my day. I know that God was trying to show me that something was wrong with the washer (I was just to busy to pay attention). I believe that He wants me to go into my day with a plan and direction, but He also wants me to be flexible enough to change my plans without complaining and slow down when necessary. And as I was wiping up the last spots of water off of the floor, Proverbs 19:21 kept running through my mind. I'm so glad that God has the final say in what we plan and has the power to change our plans when He needs to teach us something.