Buckle up baby, it's a bumpy ride

I don't usually turn to the immortal words of Bon Jovi for inspiration.  But every year, for about a six week period at the end of the school year, I feel like I dive in and don't catch my breath until late June.  And that's in a "normal" year (normal being a relative term, but in this case being, "we are not moving to a new continent in 2 months.")

If anyone is considering having children, I would strongly recommend against having two with birthdays only 11 days apart.  It's also extremely difficult having kids' birthdays and related festivities at the end of the school year when we are also contending with school projects, end of spring sports, end of dance, myriad of high school events for Tim to attend, Father's Day, other extended family birthdays, end of year teacher gifts.  And we're not even in the prom or graduation stage yet!  I find this period of time even more stressful than the 6 weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year's. 

I find this extremely discouraging because we've made a conscious effort to limit the activities that our children participate in.  I never wanted to be the minivan-taxi shuttling them from one event to another.  But...there's three of them, and everything comes at once.

This week alone we've had a super late baseball game which didn't even finish until well after 8:30 p.m. and Charlotte's 7th birthday party which was, to put it mildly, two and a half hours of INSANITY.  I feel like I might never recover from that one.  We've got tired and cranky kids and are tired and cranky ourselves.  We had an epic hour and a half battle over homework last night, because it's not just about the homework.  It's about the massive life change we are jumping into while still trying (and failing) to handle "regular life."

Now we're deep in the midst of garage sale prep which is scheduled for this Saturday.  I pray for a deep reservoir of strength that I just don't have right now, to manage to price and sell all this stuff.

I struggle with keeping God as a priority in the crazy times.  In the middle of insanity, how do we find the stillness that comes only in Him?  How do we quiet our minds when they are filled with details?  How do we find the time and make Him our priority when there's so much stuff to get done?  How do we limit the craziness to only that which glorifies Him?

I certainly don't have any easy answers.  But I do know that I'm holding on to a verse this week, "Be still and know that I am God.  I will be exalted among the nations.  I will be exalted among the earth." (Psalm 46:10).   I'm reminding myself that the details are going to get done if we place our trust in this refuge.  And in the end, they are only details.