Oh my goodness!!!!!!! (you have to say it like Shirley Temple)

It’s August, and although we’ve been busy this summer, fall brings much activity and a struggle for BALANCE! 

For the truth is that most of my adult life has been a carnival of people and appointments and commitments and responsibilities.  It has been a juggling act in which I heroically kept dozens of different balls in the air:  my husband and his agenda, my children and their agendas, my work and its agenda, not to mention myself and mine.  My world has moved to an erratic rhythm – like a nonstop Calliope with the hiccups-propelled by my strange, haphazard blend of absent-mindedness and perfectionism.  And it has often seemed that the many things I wanted to do and had to do and felt I should do were constantly colliding like bumper cars.

(Taken from A Place Called Simplicity, Claire Cloninger, 1993)

I rode bumper cars yesterday with my family, and the Nesbitt family at Busch Gardens.  Hysterically I remember my husband and I cramped into the bumper car, determined to ride together, despite our middle-aged spread.  My legs were up to my chin as I struggled to find the gas.  Once we got started we laughed bumping into each other, and greeting total strangers with a BAM! “What’s up?!” 

Jesus is our peace.  

Help me to remember that bumper car days can be fun, if I remember that my husband is right beside me, laughing with me, and that the world around me, including my beautiful family (I LOVE YOU NESBITTS!) are along for the ride too.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.  Jeremiah 29:11