The Chorus of the Car Alarms

You have probably gathered from reading my last few blogs that I have been in a hormonal funk/rage for the last week or so. Could the hormones have been compounded by 7 puppies who have learned to escape from their holding place and the anxiety of the next two weeks in which I will engage in more physical activity than I've had in the last 5 years? Very likely. Have I made my husband and children miserable? Yes. Did God hit me upside the back of the head and tell me it's time to get over it? Yes.

I could not go to sleep last night I was hurting so bad, so I finally took some medicine with a sleep aid. At 2:00 this morning. Yeah, I didn't get up for church this morning. Josh took the kids and I slept the morning away like the grizzly bear everyone is scared to wake. I finally did wake up and I was determined it was going to get better. We all ran up to the dance studio this afternoon and I finally felt excited instead of panicked. We headed back to church and my soul literally felt like it was starving for God's Word. That is my fault. Because, in my hormonal state this week I deprived myself of what I needed most. Time with Him. I was ashamed when I couldn't find my Bible before we left the house. I was even more ashamed to find it exactly where I had left it at the church on Wednesday night.

I enjoyed singing some praises and then it was time for Josh to preach. About 5 minutes into his sermon a car alarm went off. My first thought was that it was probably ours. Because, let's face it, that is just so something that would happen to us. Then I remembered I left the keys on the kitchen counter and if the dogs had found a way to climb the kitchen counter I did not want to go home. Well, you have to get the picture here-we have a mostly elderly congregation. So, what I'm saying is that half the people didn't even hear the alarms. The ones that did all started pushing buttons on their keyrings and before we knew it there  were FOUR car alarms going off! On another day I might have been upset that the sacred moment was being interrupted, but for some reason tonight, it tickled me. That's a southern phrase, but do you know what I mean? I got tickled. I started laughing and couldn't stop. I looked at one of the ladies in the back and she was laughing and it pushed me over the edge to the laughing cry. Maybe you just had to be there, but it still makes me laugh out loud envisioning the chaos that ensued.

Josh is a pro and has preached through screaming children, barking dogs and music randomly playing at the wrong time. He kept on going and I tried to control myself.  I started having deep thoughts. About how my week had been a lot like that car alarm experience. I already have one of those personalities that is random. I am the type that I will go to the kitchen to start the dishwasher and when I see the windex next to the diswasher soap I remember I need to clean the mirror in the bathroom and when I get to the bathroom I see the toilet paper needs to be replaced and when I go to the closet to get it I remember the towels in the dryer.....you get the picture. My autobiography one day will be called, "If You Give Emily a Roll of Toilet Paper". Anyway, in addition to my everyday distractableness (new word) I struggle with that spiritually too. Just like the car alarms that interuppted our service, I let so many things distract me from what God is trying to say to me. I get busy, I start running, I let myself become stressed over silly, unimportant details. I often end up creating more noise and messes by jumping in too quick to fix things that I should just let Him take care of. 

I pray that this week instead of jamming to the chorus of the car alarms we can,  "Sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth."  Psalm 96:1