Packing for a trip to the beach I realized I needed to bring along the soap disspenser. I looked at it and pressed down and turned to the right but it didn’t ‘catch’ and the nozzle came back up again. I pushed down again (soap squirting all over the sink) and tried to do it faster. Still to no avail. By the third time my hands were slippery with soap, my sink was a mess and I’m thinking “Just go spend the $1 at Wal-Mart to get a new bottle!” but I was bound and determined to bring THIS bottle of soap because I’d already spent the money and we are only going to be gone a week. I stared at the bottle, messing with the nozzle and then it dawned on me, unscrew the nozzle from the bottle, push it down (when it’s NOT in the container of soap) to tighten it closed, and then put it back in the bottle and screw into place.
VOILA! Genius! 😉
Yes, I am 37 years old and admitting to you that it took me three messy tries to figure out the engineering of a generic soap bottle.
This morning in adoration I poured my heart out to our Lord that I have been struggling with so many facets of my life right now. With different relationships that I do not feel I am ‘reacting’ the way He desires or the fact that this was my last week to work for the parish, that after 8 years of knowing with certainty that I was where He wanted me to be in ministry I am now uncertain of where He is taking me. I know others look at me like I’m a fool because it probably seems obvious how lucky I am to get to stay home to write, be there for my kids, do more for the Maria Goretti Network, etc BUT at this point it still feels ‘wishy washy’ to me. I’m TYPE A. I need a set plan.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA (that’s God laughing)…. 🙂
I’m excited. I’m scared. I’m sad. I’m frustrated with myself. I’m anxious. I’m nervous.
He gave me a great message through the ‘Direction for Our Times as Given to Anne, a lay apostle’ from Volume One –
“You are quick to become discouraged. You are not a saint. You will experience your weakness. To despair over your weakness is a failure in humility. Expect to fail. Expect to need My intervention and My sustaining hand. Do not be surprised when you feel the sting of your humanity.”
It has also been ten years since my ‘conversion moment’ on the floor. I need to go back to the basics of giving it all up to God. Turn back to that time that I let everything in my life go and focused only on what God was calling me to in all aspects of my life. It’s not that I’ve gone astray but as the message says I’ve lost touch with my humility.
I pondered a bottle of lotion this morning that I wanted to pack up. I reached for it and almost began the very same process I’d done with the soap bottle (pushing it down to twist and turn)…thankfully I caught myself and had to laugh out loud. Sometimes old habits die hard. I unscrewed the nozzle and did it the ‘right’ way. Easy.
Blessings!
Shannon