Hi Everyone,
Happy Wednesday! How is your week going?
Last weekend definitely did not turn out as planned for me. All last week I was preparing for my daughter’s birthday party on Saturday. I decided that I’d be ahead of the game this time and not save all of the food preparation until Friday. So Thursday night I chopped a watermelon and baked cupcakes. Friday morning I took her to school and headed to the grocery store for last-minute items. I also made a trip to Hobby Lobby and a trip to Costco.
When I got home from all of the errands, I made a pasta salad and started on the frosting. A few minutes in, I ran out of powdered sugar. No big deal, I thought, because I bought a new bag earlier in the week to have just in case. Except that I couldn’t find it anywhere.
I searched the pantry and found many of the bags of party plates and candy I had tucked around the house. No powdered sugar.
So I made another trip to the store for the powdered sugar and picked Lila up from school. When she got in the car, she was acting grouchy and looked pretty tired. At home, she said her throat hurt and she fell asleep on the couch. When she woke up, she had a 101 fever.
We decided to cancel the party and reschedule it. So I made numerous phone calls and sent texts notifying our guests about the sick birthday girl.
Recently I started teaching Lila a memory verse each week. The past two verses she learned were completely applicable to the situation at hand — an unexpected change of plans.
“This is the day the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it.”
– Psalm 118:24
“Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure…”
– Philippians 2:14-15
So instead of complaining about my sick birthday girl and her canceled party, I resolved to rejoice and be glad. I also remembered James 4:14-15:
“Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’”
So I ended up with a lot of down time this weekend that I didn’t plan on having and lots of snuggles with my sick girl. It felt so strange with all of the running around that I’ve been doing lately, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.
So, Lord willing, we’ll have a birthday celebration this weekend.
How do you respond when these unexpected things happen? It’s taken me many times of responding the wrong way, to learn to trust God when things don’t go as I had planned. Because I know that He’s trying to teach me something in the process, I just have to be on the lookout for it.