Whoa, baby – Jeffrey’s senior year was turning out to be way too stressful. There were just too many unknowns which seemed to be thrown at me constantly, and I wasn’t handling it too well. I tried to hold onto Psalm 46:10 which I wrote about in my last post, but I was having a hard time keeping on top of everything, and it was definitely showing in my attitude.
This particular crank-fest started when a couple weeks before Christmas break, Jeffrey comes home from school and states that he was selected as one of the finalists for “Mr. RHS” (Redmond High School). Of course that meant absolutely nothing to me, because this was the first I’d even heard of the program! However evidently there was a mandatory meeting coming up soon for the parents of the finalists to let them know all of what was going to start happening.
As I started asking Jeffrey for more information about the whole thing, he showed his true calling as a “guy” (sorry, fellows – I know you’re not all like that), and said he really had no more information (don’t guys hate to ask questions?).
Since I’m a planner, his reply was making me even crankier than I already was. How could I get stuff on the calendar if I didn’t know what I was supposed to be putting on the calendar?
Then I got an email from the special ed teacher, asking if I’d had time to review the email she’d sent to me previously with all the information on the program – which I’d never received!
AARGH!
The next day Jeffrey gets home from school and informs me that “oh, by the way,” he’s signed up to take the ACT test which was needed to get him into college – and he had scheduled it for this weekend!
Okay, so much for any other plans we already had.
I asked Jeffrey if he’d made arrangements with the special ed teacher, because she needed to request special accommodations for him to take the test.
No, of course not. So, he ended up not being able to take the test that weekend…
I was getting crankier and crankier. We needed this test done so we could get going on finalizing the rest of the paperwork to see about getting him admitted to his dream college (Oh, The Grace And Ways Of God). Plus, they were offering a “priority scholarship” deadline of January 15th where they would take extra money off the tuition – no way he could make that now!
But, of course, each day is a day to start fresh. The next morning I felt the Lord reminding me that I just needed to take one day at a time. Matthew 6:34 (NIV) states:
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
A good reminder of that came in my Bible notes of the study I was currently leading on the book of Exodus. It had to do with the Israelites who had finally escaped Pharaoh, but now all of a sudden they found themselves blocked by the Red Sea!
Of course they do not yet realize how God’s going to deliver them by splitting the Sea, so they’re starting to panic – they’re basically scared to death.
But what does God say as Moses comes before him?
‘Why are you crying out to me? Tell the people to get moving!’
Exodus 14:15 (NLT).
In other words, keep on trudging along!
As I continued to read and study, I really felt in my heart that we needed to do just that – keep on going forward in the Embry-Riddle college thing, trusting that He would direct us each step of the way.
After all, God can choose to open doors anytime He wants to, right?
The God Of All Comfort 