When the trials come

Will you still praise the One that allows them?  We are all tested on that, but lately I've found that the testing seems to be increasing.  We all have the the big ones that test our faith, the loss of a pregnancy, the death of a friend, the passing of a parent or spouse.  Then we have the tiny ones like losing our car keys when we were supposed to leave 10 min earlier, waiting for a Dr's appt over 20 min, watching people that came after you get service before you.

Last week we were blessed immeasurably by my father and stepmom renting a house on the beach and inviting us to come and stay with them.  It was a wonderful time and I am so incredibly grateful that they were able to offer us that gift of hospitality.  We normally see them about once a year, which is really hard to try and get the children to be able to establish a bond with them, but this week cemented that bond that I desired they would have.  My children constantly wanted to know where Nina and Papa were, and would bang on their bedroom door if they couldn't find them, lol.  It was just an abundant blessing to have that experience with a house on the beach, living in complete peace and relaxation for one week.  My oldest boy tirelessly worked at building things in the sand, my middle child fell in immediate love with the ocean and we couldn't get him out, and my youngest enjoyed a bit of all of it.  It really made my husband and I think about what kind of life we were giving our children and how much of us or what of us they really benefited from, or whether we could change things so that they were more of a priority and reap more of the blessings from that.  Anyways, getting off point here!  We had a list of things go wrong this week that we spent in preparation for our vacation and on it, and were able to see where our hearts were in praising God during the storms.  And also what our faith was in, did we really believe in God's ability to intervene, and would we contend for that, even when the natural circumstances spoke the opposite.  Granted, most of these things are the small things, but I find I'm most tested by the small inconvenience is life rather than the earth shattering big ones.

• Husband got poison ivy all over his face, had an area on his forehead that was pussing, and had to be put on steroids which stopped him from being able to take any over the counter pain meds  
• I had a 101 degree temp and a sore throat right before leaving for FL
• Husband had a 38lb piece of metal fall 8 ft and cut open his knee a couple hrs before our flight
• Husband had no pain meds to deal with the excruciating pain
• We took a bag that we had to pay an extra $50 both ways in addition the the $20 luggage fee b/c it's was over 61"
• The rental car didn't fit the car seats like we were guaranteed it would
• Woke up first morning with pink eye
• Husband wasn't able to get into the water for 3 days b/c of his stitches, so he had to watch his children play instead of being able to really interact with them.  That may have been worse for him than the pain
• Sebastian got a temp and was having some pretty bad nightmares
• Boys up a few times all but one night (that's pretty normal though ,lol)
• Gave my stepmom a black eye completely unintentionally.  Actually I blame her for giving herself one, she just used me ;)  Which over the next 4 days just continued to get worse!
• Justified going out for a nice seafood dinner to have a meal that tasted worse than Lean Cuisines (which if you've tried those, you know that's really, really, really bad)
• Cut my toe in 3 places walking over the railroad tracks
• Took precious video of the boys on a treasure hunt and had the video camera turn off on me 2 times for absolutely no reason, so I missed all of the really important memory making parts of their adventure
• Our flight was delayed twice, had to change tickets b/c of a layover problem, had to change tickets again b/c it ended up working out and we could catch our next flight, three sleeping kids w/ 4 carry-on bags made it close to impossible to get from area to area, gates were changed on us, and the airline lost one of our car seats

The majority of the minor upsets were nothing more than that, a few minutes of time wasted being upset and then over it.  A few took a bit longer, but still got over and on with the rest of the vacation.  God has been able to teach me a lot about keeping my peace in both the little and big trials of life.  As my dad said to me, "If you can't do anything to change the circumstance, there is NO point in giving it any thought".  It all comes back to my base belief of knowing that God is bigger than anything I'm going through, and that He uses it all for good whether I see it or not.  We all will encounter times of sun and times of rain, it is what it is, but how will you handle yourself in them?  Hopefully, you're where I am, and just want God to reveal to you the hidden things in your heart, and help to make you a stronger person both in your faith, and in life in general.  Otherwise, what's the point?