Scrub brush revelation

It has been a long week. Michael Main said yesterday "I've discovered why I enjoy vacations so much ... because preparing for them is so stressful". Yes and amen.

Monday, while gathering up wood to dry for our camping trip, I came across what might have been the Guinness Book of World Records' spider's little sister, clutching her egg sack and giving me the evil eye ... eyes. To my great regret, I killed her. See, little spiders don't bother me, but she was so ... big and scary. Still I hated to kill her and all her tiny babies. Spidercide is not good for my spirit.

Tuesday I had to take my cat to the vet because she's been sick. $60 later I headed home with my angry feline to make dinner for the guys. I spend 30 minutes on the phone with K who is on vacation but having a fight with her mother and her aunt. Later, the boys and I go geocaching. We walk over a hill and down to a stream and just then we see a coyote pup coming up out of the woods near the trail. It was the kind of moment that forces you to be very quiet -- and I feel like my crummy day might be salvageable after all. But no... not long after, I start feeling sick. I hike back the 1/2 mile alone, in misery, to wait for the guys at the truck.

On Wednesday, work is an insane asylum and I forget how to cope. I feel myself becoming more shrill and unlikeable with every hour. I weigh in at WW and I'm 2# over. I leave work late to help T with the church picnic where I again prove what a poor cook I am. I go home to find that the sick cat had stopped using the litterbox and started using my throw rugs. The vet says she needs to come in for 2 days of IV fluids and get started on a course of antibiotics -- hopefully this will cure her -- or she might have kidney failure or cancer and will die. Either/or. That will be $226, please. I spend the rest of the night mopping floors, washing rugs, doing laundry and scrubbing the bathroom I've been trying to clean since Sunday.

While scritching away at my tub, it hits me. Things feel so hard because I'm trying to do it all alone. I'm parenting, fixing the cat, managing the dental insurance, mediating the fights, preparing the food, cleaning the messes, organizing the trip and shuffling a huge to-do list at work. I'm doing it all -- but I'm doing it all alone. And GOD! (yes, I'm crying out to You!) I can't. It dawned on me as I was on my knees (how fortuitous) cleaning that tub that I need God every step of the way, or things just get too overwhelming. Right there, I laid those burdens down -- at the foot of the cross and the base of the tub.

The fallacy of my faith is that I always ask for help on the big stuff -- but not the small things.

Just one more meeting, a few more hours of work, a grocery trip and a run to the vet. And then it's the weekend. And the cool, green forests, clear rivers and stunning silence of vacation.