Where has the mind gone?

Where has the time mind gone?

Anyone else might not understand my devastation when I forgot where I’d put Matt’s paycheck the other day.

Life happens, things get misplaced, even important things.

Even the biggest organize junkie can have a day like I did and end with the realization that the most important slip of paper went into her hand and back out without the slightest recollection.

Why then, did this understandable event cause such grief that I spent nearly an hour huddled in the corner of my bathroom sobbing into my lap while my husband, unaware that I was beside myself, frantically looked for his months pay.

The day began a bit earlier than usual with a hot cup of coffee.  Matt and I packed lunch in a cooler and tried to make breakfast to go before the kids all stumbled down the stairs with hungry tummies.  If we could beat them to it we planned to whisk them into their car seats and stuff bananas in their chubby hands so we would not be held up by the usual hour of dressing, diapering, breakfast routine.

We made it just in time. Buckled the Thinglets into their seats, shoveled a green smoothie into Pee Wee’s little mouth and off we went for the 2 1/2 hour drive north for hay.

Twenty or thirty songs and stories later we made it to the farm where we collect our hay twice yearly.  The farmer was ready with hay forks on his tractor.  I hired Thing 1 to divvy up the snack and give a bottle to the littlest before jumping onto the flatbed to roll 120lb bales of pokey, itchy hay into position while Matt hefted the strays.  Rolling bales might sound like a simple endeavor but when the rectangles are turned they tend to want to stay turned.  With all my might I fought them into place, swiping the sweat under my baseball cap, occasionally letting my boot slip through a crack in the ever growing stack.

Don’t feel too bad, I love to do hay but it sure is exhausting work.

Once most of the bales were loaded I took a break to let the little ones have a few minutes out of the truck before our long trek home.

With Pee Wee on my hip and Bubba in tow we picked alfalfa flowers as I threatened the big boys to stay out of the way of the tractor.  Finally it was time to pull out the checkbook so I summoned Matt with the “Mary Poppin’s Pockets”.  He pulled a somewhat soggy pile of papers from his back pocket and we laughed at having to find a dry check to pay with. 

The farmer (a friendly granfatherly man) snatched up the Bubba and tickled him upside down like he would have done to his own grandson.

Matt noticed his paycheck in the stack of papers and handed it to me for safe keeping, I set the checkbook down on the bumper of the green Chevy and…

POOF!

I can’t remember what happened next.

Remembering has become infinitely more precious to me this year.  You see, my Dad was diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimers a disease that robs the brain of memory by depositing plaque in areas with previously perfect activity.  Early Onset is the only type of AZ that is believed to be highly hereditary.  At one point I heard a stat that children of Early Onset AZ patients have a 50% chance of contracting this disgusting disease which can begin it’s tragic effects as early as 30.

Did I mention I turned 30 this year?

That’s how an ordinary event and an active imagination gets turned into a cause for devastation.  A crippling reminder that life is short and a tragic way to start a perfectly good day.

Thank goodness that isn’t where the story ends.

God’s promised are not bound by time, events or circumstance and despite my first raw feelings that somehow my Jesus caused this to happen to Dad.  The facts are he did not, he does not, he can not cause ugly, depraved and sin induced things to happen. He does however allow us to wrestle through life bumping into our circumstances (sometimes self induced, often not) with the choice to include him or not.

When Jacob (the deceiver) wrestled with God (Gen 32:22-31) in the desert he hung on till daybreak. God could have ended the match at any second and yet he allowed the hand to hand combat to continue.  Why?  To be cruel, because he was heartless?  A game?  Jacob had been dubbed a liar from birth, it was on every tongue when his name was spoken.

“Liar, come to dinner.”

“Liar, clean your room.”

God eventually ended the tussle by simply touching (and injuring) Liar’s leg and when he let go he announced,

“You have wrestled with God and with man and you have overcome.  From now on your name will be Israel (he struggles with God)”

In a recent Bible Study I attended the leader implored us to “hang on until the blessing comes.”

The Liar, wrestling with God would not let go. He clung to the struggle and stuck with it until he had encountered God (the wrenched hip) and received a new name “Israel my beloved!”

Even though I don’t like it, even though my mind deceives me I will hang on till the blessing comes and not allow my circumstances to cripple me and keep me from encountering God.