Oh had quickly that clean slate gets dirty!!

All the encouragement I had in my spirit yesterday, and even this morning, as I headed into the new quarter of homeschool…well, it was deeply challenged today. We actually got off to a great start, I had a good plan and the kids were ready to get the wokr knocked out. We had a good time of Bible reading and discussion and prayer. We had time to jump on the new trampoline and have snacks and even sneak in an errand.

That is the good stuff.

The rest, well it felt like a Messy Monday.  The coffee pot overflowed when I brewed the first pot. Yes, first…it was a two pot day. The garbage bag leaked.

When the kids went to play on the trampoline three of them stepped in dog poop.

The dog stepped in dog poop…and he is faster than the kids when he tracks it in!

Maddie, who is generally the easiest baby on the planet, was not easy. She was mad. Mad as spit. All day. No matter what we offered her or did.

The worst part was that one of the boys just was in that mood, you know the mood where nothing is going to go right. It came right after we ran our errand, and lasted right up to fifteen minutes ago when I sent his hiney up to bed. He dragged out every assignment, he wrote painfully slowly in our joint work, and he literally dragged his feet throughout the afternoon. We pulled him out of the mood during dinner and we had laughs and good times during dinner, but in the last hour of finishing up school work that had not been completed, he melted down again. When he began scribbling in his Bible I called it quits.

The day had been prepped for, the day had been approached with prayer and hope. The day stunk in many ways.  I was frustrated and am tired.  And yet, I am not surprised.

The fact is January 2nd is real life…it is all the hopes and expectations and wonder and excitement of the clean slate of January 1st, but with the eraser marks and smudges of having real life interrupt. I’m still excited about 2013, but I’m a little more realistic. I know that the kids will not jump out of bed in the morning and be shiny faced and excited to plunge into school work. I know that I will not either.  And yet…the slate is clean again tonight. It is for the boy who had an attitude all day, and it is for me.

God’s mercies are new every morning.

Hope is hope because it does not rest in me and my abilities. Hope is founded on One Who is surer than I and therefore I can rest and know that the hope will be fulfilled.  Not a hope that all my neat plans will come together in the way I have imagined…but the hope that the God who hears is listening and the God who created continues to create and to work in those who seek Him.  The hope that He will not leave me alone in the desires that He has stirred in my heart.

January 2nd.  Messy Mondays. Life.

God the creative, redeeming savior.
Clean slate and hope in tact.