"The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry." --Robert Burns
I would add "and moms" to that famous line.
The children are sick, Annie feeling the worst with a fever, croupy cough and very restless sleep. Her nose is stuffy and her cheeks are pink.
Our plans have been knocked flat again by the stuff of life. I have
spent the past twelve hours feeling sorry for myself as I have done under these circumstances in the past. I think I am over it now.
All of the extra lesson ideas I had hoped to accomplish with the children, the Lenten crafts, the purging/organizing
and the visting with friends have all taken a back seat to the little
girl in the pink nightgown. And so it should be, but it is stretching
and it hurts when our plans do not work out the way we'd like. Motherhood is full of opportunities to die to self, both voluntary and involuntary.
So, here I sit, holding that pink bundle, listening to her heavy breathing, kissing her forehead and saying little prayers for her.
Please, won't you do the same? And while you are at it, please utter an Ave for me as well, that I will embrace God's plan, in both the big and small, even when it differs from my own.
Perhaps this is my Lenten journey, not the crafts and charts and plans I had hoped for, but the giving up of my need for control, the resting in a plan that is bigger and better than I can imagine.
