Humbled by a Chance Quote

I have a Franklin-Covey day-planner, and it gets a lot of use Mon-Fri, but uh, not so much on the weekends. I LOVE it for work, b'days, bill pay dates, and daily tasks thru the week. I enjoy reading the quotes on every day's notepage on business days, but I don't even open it on the weekends- preferring spontaneity on my down-time days spent with family.

Charlie Brown and I were badly in need of going to the grocery. But, we're list shoppers, so I grabbed my nearby planner to start making a list on the day's note page.

There, at the bottom, read words that spoke to my very soul:

I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble.
--Helen Keller

Wow....uhm, yeah, what she said.

You see, part of this whole growing up process that continues to plague me is a sense of restlessness this longing that Helen Keller spoke of to do and be something larger than life, and then discontentment with the fact that I haven't quite reached that goal, at least not as it stood in my original plan. In fact, I've been really soul-searching lately and there's this feeling in me that I need to let go of, but am struggling to do. I guess I feel like life happened to me instead of was something that I made happen. Geeze, can you say victim mentality - the fact that that even enters my head makes me want to gag! Mostly these feelings emanate from LMNOB's timing and the fact that her entry to my world was a radical agent of change to the plan from which I thought I'd never deviate. But that's just it! I did deviate from it, and before LMNOB ever was a twinkle in my eye, so why do I lose sight of that?

On top of it all, I know that even with free will, God's hand is ever present in my life - having prayed for years that He would "guide, guard, and direct" my life according to His will. Doesn't that mean that regardless of my plans, His are going to trump? Psalms 13:21 says Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails, and yet, I become blind to this truth so easily it's very put-me-in-my-rightful-place humbling. Particularly so when I read James 4:13-15: Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." 14Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." Uhhhm-hmmm, that plan I mentioned? That plan which has undergone a series of revisions, and even just recently I was contemplating updating? Purely worthless without asking His permission first....DUH! I don't know what tomorrow holds - that's the whole reason I'm disillusioned in the first place - because tomorrow didn't live up to MY expectations. Me thinks humble pie tastes kind of like molasses; a little is not too bad, but the whole pie is pretty tough to choke down.

I didn't plan to be a mother, but God made me one. And I love these kids like no tomorrow - perhaps I ought to heed Helen Keller's words, and take my seemingly ordinary charge as a mother, and perform those maternal duties with the reverence and awe they deserve instead of viewing them as a chore.

I didn't plan on being 26 and an admin assistant, but here I sit. Sure, I took this job b/c it's the world of grants and I thought that the information would be helpful when my plan detoured from being a counselor to most likely working with some kind of human services non-profit agency. I guess when I'm bored, I should re-evaluate and think b/c of my efforts to maximize efficiency in our office, several hardworking agencies out there are benefitted with the energy to help the really hard cases. That is a great and noble task, in the big scheme. Where it takes me, we'll wait and see, but I'm gonna quit pushing quite so hard my search for a different, more meaningful job.

I hate housework, and am quite resentful when Charlie Brown leaves it all for me to do. Though, if I think back to our Dynamic Marriage course, I recall that a clean house was something he reported as a deposit in the love bank. I love him, I want to make deposits in that account, and with that in mind, the drudgery of domestic tasks becomes something with greater significance. Or at least that's what I have to keep telling myself - this one's a bit harder to see!

Being a wife
Being a Mother
Being a sister - physical or spiritual
My community involvement
All the things that lovingly serving my family encompasses
Cooking great food
Sharing my heart
Paying my bills
Exercising (for longevity and health)
Speaking out on "silent" issues
Etc, etc,

All of the above are things that are just me...rather were just me - no longer are character traits and roles I play- along with the duties they require, JUST anything - now, they are the great and noble things which make me who I am.

Thank you Helen, not only for your amazing life, but for your utterance, immortalized by history, seen by me in a moment of chance - for they have given me the much-needed attitude adjustment I have been looking for.

Thank you Father, for blessing me with your Word today. Have your Way with my life, Father God on High, I surrender to Your will - just one favor: will you PLEEEEEAASE help me to KNOW it when I see it? Love ya, Dad~ your red-headed child (ain't no step about it with this Daddy!)