Roadside Boxes (and blankets)

I needed a box. A big one!

Yesterday I mentioned this to the LORD in pondering the blanket drive we were starting again this year at Living Waters Worship Center to help supply area shelters. We had done this the previous year and I believe we ended up with around 78 or more brand new blankets to share among 4 shelters.

In my mind this past Christmas season we already had a number of projects going on to help people in need, so I had decided to not have a "Bring A Blanket" drive. Then someone sorking with a shelter, approached me asking if we would be donating blankets this year. And then another someone and then I was at a Veterans home where a need for blankets for another place was shared....

Well ok then LORD...maybe you do want this happening. Still in all I did not want to burden the congregation and did not even have the ability to help supply them yet either...Then a blanket was given to me in case we were giving blankets to a womens shelter...and then I was approached again..Maybe I just needed my spiritual ears cleaned out! And then I was told 20 hats had just been knit and donated for us to give to the mens shelter. They are now on my desk awaiting their new owners.

So it was announced Sunday that for the next two weeks we would be collecting NewTwin Size Blankets again to deliver to the area shelters. Next, I needed to get a LARGE box to collect them in for this Sunday coming up. And so the pondering...Where am I going to get a box that size LORD? I am picturing stopping at a couple different places to check availability. I really am just not energetic right now..it's winter (yes I know it has been mild so far), my youngest son just moved (glad for him yet still sad you know), my dad has been in the hospital 3 times in 2 weeks, Christmas stuff still not completely down and still some gifts I have not even  mailed to my grandkids yet (what a weighty and embarrassing confession that is!), my washer is still broken. Yes. Well in all that, I am still more than a conqueror as Apostle Paul would say...persecuted not abandoned...pressed down but not destroyed...nothing separating me from Gods love...
And I am NOT in a homeless shelter or even close! So coming home from prayer meeting last night lo and behold on the side of Highway 149 is a huge ....go on, you guess...no, not a tiger... not an animal at all, but a box! My eyes opened wide...

As we continued on our way passing it by, I casually said to Marty,
"I need that box".
"Why do you need that box? You don't know what it was used for or if it is even empty and since it is late, I do not want to go check it out".
"OK. But I want you to know that box is an answer to prayer".  At least I was pretty sure it was. So I explained myself, we pulled into the driveway, and went inside the house. I got busy and forgot about the box actually.
This morning after taking Lily to school and Adrena to daycare he came in and said,
"The box is still there and it flapped open as I drove past. It's empty. We can go get it if you still want it."

So my partner in some of my ministry endeavors (although sometimes it is the other way around and I am a partner in his) took me back, broke down the very large box, put in in the back of his already loaded with someotherthingsfromme jeep, and took us home before he headed off to work at the office. (Thanks Honey!)

If I needed more signs from God that He has need of blankets for some of His people, this one, providing the box, really clinched it...even so He allowed me to talk at length today with a woman (a friend I had not seen in years) who works with one of the shelters...and so for now this is what we are doing and if you live nearby and want to help over the next couple weeks..Please bring a blanket.  Must be new and twin size. Thanks!!! You may drop them off at our church Sunday mornings 88 E US Highway 6 in Valparaiso or even at one of our offices Angel Auto Insurance (RT 6 Hobart or Willowcreek Rd Portage)

Un-Decking The Halls (gettting the decorations down)

Not ever the quickest to get my decorations up in the first place, I am now faced with taking them down and *sigh* putting them away... In their proper storage bins so they are easy to locate next year. And then up the stairs into the attic. I really love how my house looks when it is Christmas decorated! But now 2 weeks past not so much.

Slowly, and slowly is the key word here, I have been taking things off the walls. Garland and lights are off the banister, careully placed on the couches and coffee tables where they really do not belong. Felt gingerbread people no longer hung on the enormous oven hood WITH CARE because as I write this I realize hanging them there sounds hazardous but if you saw them you would know it wasn't. Penguins off the fake Hibiscus tree in the kitchen. Mini ornaments off the "kid tree" which was at one point stunningly decorated with a slinky and foam flowers and "normal decorations".

So why am I moving slow as molasses on a winters day? Why am I not jumping in to clean this mess up and restore post Christmas order to my home? I do not know. Really. I don't. I think it is because this year unless I want to wait until it is dark outside and temperatures have dropped and I have a school day weary daughter to help, I am doing this alone and it is ALOT of work. I could tell the overcast weather was trying to cast a blanket over my mood yesterday because I started feeling sorry for myself. Ummm yes, that is what it was for real. Feeling sorry for myself. I told myself I was like one of the maids in the movie I had just watched last weekend, "The Help". (See how what we watch can affect our thoughts? I don't think I am the only one with a suseptible brain). 

So now that I have vented a bit with this blog..and in light of the sunnier day we have today...and in spite of my low energy level, which there are any number of reasons for...I am going to at least begin pulling the bins into the family room (here known by the knick name the TV Room) and into the Living Room (aka the Fireplace Room). I am pretty sure to have help hauling them upstairs when it is time, although it will probably be with a fair amount of reluctance that they are hauled.

You know that scripture in Proverbs that says "Where no oxen are the stall is clean"? As in: we should be glad to have the stall to clean even though that is unpleasant, since it means we have the oxen to help us produce our livelyhood. Well, in the case of unpleasant other tasks like this (and really comparatively it isn't as bad as shoveling heaping piles of steaming, poopy straw out of an animal stall)... Anyway...as in this case it means I have a home to decorate for Christmas. I have decorations to decorate with and a family to do that for and celebrate with...
So now I have reason to rejoice. See I just needed you all to help me straighten my thinking cap out. Thanks! I am now off to continue un-decking my halls....

Emotions (not responding to logic)

He just isn't here anymore. Physically that is. My mind climbs the stairs to his room and then remembers all over again. Yesterday he moved. Yesterday I held my tears tight so he wouldn't be embarassed at the airport. My youngest son just 17 moving across the country. A good move. An awesome opportunity. He is with people who love him. I know it. Logic tells me so. Even my spirit tells me so. Ahh but my emotions just do not want to get in line with that today.

So typing and wiping the tears off my cheeks I am grateful for the normal things going on around me. Taking Lily to school. Dishes needing to be done. Annali not feeling well so I get to help with baby Lincoln for a while. A visit to my parents, taking a senior cup of coffee to Dad, who can't drive yet after his TIA last weekend, for his morning McDonalds coffee ritual. Thankful for the milder winter day and the bird feeder my nephew made for us as I hung it up today.

You know Abe wasn't always downstairs all day long, but he was home. When my mind travelled to where different ones of my kids would be, I could place them. So when I would think upstairs to Abe, I could place him there in my mind. I could count on being asked food questions throughout the day... What's for breakfast (or lunch or dinner)? I spent the last two weeks making as many of his favorites as possible knowing he would be leaving soon.

 And then "suddenly it came to pass" as one of my favorite passages in the Bible goes...because we seem to waaaaaaaait....at times for the answer to prayer and promises we are given and then suddenly it does come to pass...! With plans put together in an amazingly short amount of time and smoothly I should add, suddenly the day was here to get him to the airport.  And leave him there. After he crossed the threshold of scanners and places where only ticketed passengers are allowed to go...the place I could not go...because now the hands on day to day part of raising him was out of my hands.

For this to be hard and sad is not the indication of a hovering controlling mom. It is the normal releasing of a child by a proud, loving, mom who didn't know her time would be up so quickly. One who feels the emptiness there is when a child transitions. I know I will adjust. I know it is a new year and a new season in so many ways. I am not a complete empty nester, thank God. I just love my youngest son and today I miss him. In spite of all I can tell myself. And that is ok.