Taking the Slow Road

I believe in God. I believe that God believes in me and has a dream for how I should live my life. I believe He gently nudges me when I'm not wandering down the path He has in mind. I believe His reminders come in oh so many ways. Like today at Walmart.

(For those who regularly read my blog...yes, I was just at Walmart a few days ago. The under microwave light blew and it plays a pivotal role in our lives and had to be replaced.)

To start, I picked Jace and Gracie up from school. This part of my day, along with taking them to school in the morning, is tightly coordinated. I must admit that I get a little antsy waiting in line at Jace's school. The time eeks by ever so slowly and I have an almost 15 minute drive to Gracie's school after that, with approximately 20 minutes to get there before I'm making the teachers stay late. It's snug, but doable.

Today there weren't any problems and both kids made it into the car only a few minutes later than I'd have liked. We set off for Wally World for a "quick trip" to get the light bulb and go back home. I didn't want to take too long because I was expecting someone to come over this afternoon to give an estimate on taking down a tree that is slowly crumbling too close to our home. In hind sight, I didn't need to be home for him to look at the tree, but I wanted to be. So, like I said, I just wanted this to be a quick trip.

As I turned onto the road that Walmart is on the car beeped. I'm driving a new car and immediately was sure I'd broken something...I hadn't though. Emma, the car, was just letting me know she was low on gas. No problem. This just adds a little more time to my quick trip, but Walmart sells gas too. So we headed there first.

Every spot was full so I chose my lane and waited behind the person in front of me who, of course, had to go in to pay after pumping. The kids even asked what was taking so long! After she came out I pulled up and got out, only to notice that she really did have to go in to pay. The debit/credit portion of the pump was not working. I looked over to the next pump to see if they were all down, and they weren't, so I decided to move to another pump where I could pay from outside. I haven't left the kids in the car for any amount of time, ever, and gone into a building, except for our own house. If I become a statistic, it won't be for that.

So, back in the car I moved to another line facing the right direction and saw, ahead of getting out this time, that it was also broken. By this time I was slightly annoyed that my quick trip wasn't so quick anymore. But as someone cut in front of me when I was turning to find a third lane - I took that as a little sign from God. "Slow down," He whispered.

I paused, pulled behind the car that had cut me off, and waited for my turn. Patiently.

After getting gas, we went to find a parking spot at the store. You're smiling, aren't you? Finding a parking spot is never an easy, or fast, task. Today was no exception. But I found one and took it and we filed out of the car. As soon as I picked Tyler up I realized we would need to stop at the bathroom. I smiled up at the sky and felt God smile back at me. "Take a deep breath." I would have taken a deep breath, except I was holding Tyler...who stank. Who says God doesn't have a sense of humor?

While I changed Tyler I added an item to the list: travel wipes.

We ventured back to the lighting section first and found the correct bulb. I bought two. Jace asked if we could look at bikes. He recently rode a 20" bike and realized that his 16" is getting small. I remembered my kind reminders and said yes. What's a few more minutes? They were on our way to the diaper wipes anyway.

So, in the end we got what we needed, got home and relaxed for a while. I made dinner and we ate. We watched some TV and read some books, and then the door bell rang. It was 7:21 pm, in the afternoon?

Moral of the story: God really likes me to take the slow road. He doesn't like when I'm stressed out, impatient, or too focused on the goal rather than the journey. I like the way He thinks!