A Rough Start

The week before we started school back in August, God really convicted me of my joyless attitude. I was hit with the realization that it would be more important for me to model cheerfulness and contentment to my kids when our schedule is knocked off balance than to "fight" to keep things in line.

I think there is a great value in schedules and it is worth putting time and effort into planning. So I'm not saying that these things aren't important. However, for me, I tend to place too much importance and more significantly, I tend to look for validation in how tightly we stuck to the schedule. Did I get (and my kids manage to do) everything I had planned for the day? I am so tempted to derive my worth based on what we accomplished.


God has shown me in the past, through good teaching mostly, that interruptions from outside are not to be seen as irritations, but as "divine appointments". So I am, through God's grace, mostly able to be cheerful when the disruption is from someone or something outside my family. But when the disruption is from my kids acting grumpy, lazy, distracted or my husband needing me to tend to something that I didn't plan for that day, my sin nature shines right through. And it isn't pretty.


So guess what God saw fit to send to us the night before our first day of school?

This from 4am to midnight. See that fence. That's our backyard. I edited out Amy's bedroom window, but it's right behind the fence.

Beep beep, scrape, CACHUNG, BOOM! Repeat. All night long. This does not make for happy children who are able to focus and stay on task.

We found out that the construction project they are doing on the road behind our house is in "emergency mode" and they have a nighttime permit to work 4am to midnight. Sean wrote several very eloquent letters to city council, the mayor and the head of the construction company. They modified their work from 5am to 11pm. This was something that God was allowing for our good and His glory.

It has put this area of showing grace to my kids in the forefront of my mind. Since we've been living with this noise for 4 weeks now, I have a constant reminder to choose to show cheerfulness and give grace. I haven't always done what I should do or want to do. Driving out sin is hard work. But God is good and He has helped me to grow in this area that I have struggled in for such a long time.

Last week, we escaped the heat and the noise and took the kids to the beach.

And Lord willing, tonight is the last night they have a permit to work at night!