The dog days

The dog days of summer are certainly in full force here in Michigan. It always surprises me how different Summer can be in this Great Lake state of ours. I have many memories of cool,almost downright chilly summers here and then there are Summers like the one we're currently enduring which is down right hot! I am not a huge fan of super hot, super humid weather. In fact I would take a 20 degree, snowy day over it in a heartbeat. Take for example today. I decided to be the "good" mommy and haul all three kids over to a local park for an animal show. It is about 95 degrees and horridly humid here today. I decided to take Ellie with us and all the could go wrong, did. There was miscommunication between the library and the presenter. This caused about a thirty minute delay in the performance. The guy also thought he'd be inside which is better for his animals so half of his animals barely came out of their cages. Did I also mention that due to the large crowd that came out to see this man, they moved us all in the blaring hot sun?! We ended up leaving early because we were all puddling and the presentation kind of lost us without any animals!
I realized in this moment of frustration and irritation how blessed I am. Sure it was an annoying couple of hours but at the end of the day it was pretty funny how stinking hot we all were. Plus the slushies and diet cokes we were rewarded with from Sonic soon made our heat exhaustion a distant memory. I am thankful for the mundane. For being blessed to be irritated by truly trivial occurrences. Thankful for three beautiful children who yes, whined and cried so much today that I thought I might be committed for a few hours. But who also belt out, "My God is so Great!" with such enthusiasm that you can hardly stand it. I have a little boy who loves to learn about the tiny details of everything and has a giant heart for others. Last, but certainly not least, a little girl who is nearly two who walks around with her blond, yes, blond mop of hair and shakes her head feverently and says..."No!!" but also gives the best.hug.ever!
As I have begun my MSW progrm this summer, I have been re-introduced to the world that makes up social services. One word..DEPRESSING. It already has made me cherish the normalcy that is my life. This week I have read several things that have giving me glaring perspective. One of which was a post from Shelly Buck on her blog about the 6th anniversary of the death of her daughter, Ava. It was eloquent and heart wrenching to read but it spoke such truth to me about how lucky I am. How lucky we all are really to love and serve a God who serves us and our every need. In every circumstance my God is there. He meets us whether we're literally in the depths of despair. grieving so deeply we're not sure that we can go on for one more day. But also for those of us who outwardly have it all together but inside feel like sometimes we can't go on for one more day. Don't freak out..I am not saying that I literally feel like that. Sometimes the daily grind just literally starts to GRIND on you is all I am saying. The past few weeks I have made a concerted effort to have daily, early morning quiet times with God. It has made all the difference. I feel like when I do that I literally can feel God within me. I can go to Him and lean on Him much more readily than when I skip it or choose some other activity instead. I am feeling very convicted about several "time suckage" issues I have. I am praying that God would clearly reveal to me those areas in which I need to consider giving up. I am sorry to say there are several things in my life that certainly aren't edifying to me or doing anything to help me grow closer to God.
So..I started talking about my hot, crappy day and ended up talking about God. Well..where the Spirit leads...