Playing Possum

When the snow started to melt away, our 7 yr. old son noticed that we had a new lawn fixture. A frozen, giant, swollen dead possum. Very attractive. My husband and I agreed that while the younger ones were napping, we'd take the snow shovel and give this critter a proper burial (a flying leap into the woods across the street). Well, we were sidetracked and a couple of days went by. The deceased started to attract gigantic turkey buzzards. Also, very attractive. When our son returned home from school one day, he asked us if we thought the possum was just pretending to be dead. My husband mouthed the words, "Yeah, for three days!" Well, the subject was dropped again and soon forgotten about. The next day, I was coming home from the grocery store. The younger children were asleep in the back seat. There was the frozen statue of what used to be a perfectly good possum lying at the edge of the yard. I thought, "Here's my opportunity! I don't think I can wait for D to get home from work to take care of this." I got the shovel and tried to scoop up the possum (and his insides that were now outside) . He was frozen solid to the ground. I had to scrape and scrape and finally, "JACKPOT". I carried the possum to it's final resting place. I was feeling pretty good about myself. After all, I had taken care of our "little problem". All in a days work. And guess what. No one even noticed.

Listening and Obeying

I've been having some bad days lately. But who hasn't, right? Well, I just feel like God is calling me to so many things at one time that I'm completely overwhelmed and don't know where to start. A few days ago, I was having one of those days. The first three things on my "to do list" were crossed off for me. That doesn't sound so bad, but it left me with nothing to do. Now, everyone knows that as a stay-at home wife and mother, there's ALWAYS something to do. I'll rephrase, it left me with nothing I wanted to do. I was going about my chores, when my 4 year old said to me, " Mommy, let's have a tea party with your tea set." I gently told her that today would not be a good day to do that. I would have to get it out and wash it up. ( My mom just gave me my old Holly Hobbie porcelain tea set that my Grandma had given me as a child.) After the words were out of my mouth, I felt the Holy Spirit telling me, "Five minutes ago, you were grumbling about not having anything to do. What was your excuse again?" So I told her, "Let's go ahead and have that tea party!" I washed up the tea set, made some hot tea and found a small box of chocolates that someone had given my husband (Shhhh!) I put the baby in his high chair and gave him his own tea cup and saucer (very masculine) and my daughter and I had our tea party. We had our version of "Oprah's Book Club" (Or what I assume it is. I've never actually seen it.) After sipping her tea, she says, "Mommy I want to tell you about a book that Daddy read to me at the library. It's called 'Underwear Does and Don'ts'." Well, now you've got my attention! I said to her, "What did it say?" She waits a couple of seconds as to build up what she's going to say and keep me on the edge of my seat and she bursts out, "Don't take your underwear to school for show 'n tell!" Hilarious laughter ensues. I'm just so thankful, that for once I listened and spent this precious, priceless time with her. In the blink of an eye this will all be gone and I truly will be left with nothing I want to do.