Spread the loveHello there! My name is Clair, aka plan ahead (like months ahead), arrives 10 minutes early to appointments, and doesn’t appreciate unexpected changes to my schedule. Yep, that is me. If you could keep all surprise events to a minimal, I would be very grateful! This life has no consideration to my special requests. All expectations have the occasional, shoot-more than occasional, flying out the window. A high gust of wind sweeps by and sucks every single bit of my expectations out the window with no care of how I am left feeling sitting in the driver side. Life a lone can be brutal. You top that with kids and you are in for a doozy. For example (one of many), I had these great expectations of how this past Friday was going to go. It was my oldest daughter’s kindergarten graduation day. Huge day in my books! I still can’t grasp the idea of her graduating kindergarten…a post for another day 😉 I had the entire day thought out. The morning would start with warm doughnuts picked up from the doughnut shop down the road, followed by kids waking up happy and easy going. Dressing everyone would be a breeze so I could have just a little extra time to look my best from all the other mornings of no makeup and lounge clothing attire. We would arrive to the school 10 minutes early so I could savor every moment before she had to be dropped off at her class. My son would sit through the entire graduation ceremony quietly. The rest of the day would be peaceful and fun since the kids had no school for the rest of the day. Then life happened. It laughed at me. One of those obnoxious and loud laughs. My morning went nothing like I had expected. Doughnuts for breakfast? Yeaa, that didn’t happen. It was more like prepackaged mini muffins from the pantry. At least that is what I thought until cereal was added to the menu. The cereal of course didn’t last long because my oldest ended up spilling hers, milk all over the table. While I began to clean up the spilled milk, my almost 9 month old started yelling at me. She is all about her puréed fruits for breakfast. The spilled milk situation was interfering with her breakfast and she wasn’t having a part of that. I guess my son felt the need to chime in, heck why not? He begins to tell me that his cereal is nasty. I promise, there was nothing nasty about his cereal. We managed to survive breakfast and moved on to getting dressed. I wouldn’t call it getting dressed, more like wrangling wild animals. By the time I got them dressed, there wasn’t much time for me…high bun hair day it is! All kids are successfully loaded into the car and we head to the school. Alright, the graduation ceremony has got to go well…cue my son who begins to get fidgety as soon as we find a seat in the packed gym (darn it morning for making me late!). My son proceeds to kick the baby carrier on the floor in front of him (no baby inside, daddy was holding Chloe), yelling ‘Let me see your phone! I need to take pictures!’ Oh, and that clapping you heard during the silent moments? It was my son. By the look on his face while he clapped, he put a lot of effort in EVERY single clap. Needless to say, I didn’t get those great pictures and videos I had planned. The rest of the day stayed about the same, on and off craziness. Those expectations I had for the day, gone. They were swooped out the window so quick, long gone before I could grasp them. Life has a funny way of doing this. You plan and plan, but a lot of the time these plans don’t happen how we had expected. It is at this moment that we have a choice of letting life get the best of us or take it as it is and keep going. When you find yourself in one of these situations where your expectations aren’t quite presenting themselves, stop and step back. Step back. I decided to finally stop and step back after my morning had been nothing short of a joy ride. As the kids aggravated each other during lunch, I stopped and stepped back. I then saw what was in front of me much clearer as if a veil had been lifted. I was surrounded by so many blessings. Blessings that were interacting with each other while eating a meal provided for them in a house with air conditioner. Blessings. Why had I been so upset earlier when things hadn’t gone my way? I should have seen things so much differently, but of course I got wrapped up in the moment of wanting things to go perfectly as I had planned. If I had just stopped and stepped back, my morning may have gone much better. I thought about how my son had behaved earlier in the program. Blessed. Blessed that he can interact with us and communicate with us. For it wasn’t too long ago when he wasn’t able to do all of that to this extent. Then the idea of the spilled milk at breakfast popped in my head. Why fret over spilled milk? Life shouldn’t be about stressing and worrying about expectations and spilled milk. My sister in law shared a phrase with me the other day that I have become obsessed with, ‘Go with the flow.’ If we choose to ‘go with the flow’ and throw all expectations out the window, how much better would our life be?! Don’t get me wrong here. I am not saying to show up late to appointments or anything. What I am saying is that when life hands you a curve ball, don’t dodge it and then pout about missing it. Instead, let it go and keep on. One thing is for certain, God doesn’t have any stressing and worrying written out for you. What He does have is a plan much greater than any expectations we have and full of more blessings than we can imagine. When life decides to laugh at you like it did me this past Friday, just laugh back. Because you are going to ‘go with the flow’ and don’t got the time for any more shenanigans! Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Matthew 6:34