February 28 – “Really, really, really, really fast”

Yesterday was a crawl into my office cave, turn on the computer, and work kind of day.  I did work on the sermon for Sunday.  I did work on the Bible Study for tonight.  I did a lot of work on the pastor’s class for Sunday.  That one actually took up most of my time.  We are doing a track of church history, and my preparation scheme is to accumulate information for one century at a time, compile it all into a time line format, and then add in information from cultures all over the world.  The next step is to find pictorial representations for the names or events mentioned for each year.  I usually do some googling and save the pictures to my computer for the last step, which is developing a power point presentation for that century.  That power point will be my primary agenda for today, along with several other things that have come up, as usually happens.  I’m trying to get everything for the week done today so I can head up to Houston tomorrow to pray with a family before a surgery. 

Chris was only up with Mom two times last night as far as I can tell.  The night before was crazy, though.  Every hour on the hour Mom was headed somewhere.  Even after I got up and stayed up at 5:30, she joined me before long.  That time she told me she had to go upstairs.  We don’t have any stairs in our house, so I’m not sure where she thought she was.  Maybe back at her house on 36^th and Avenue L.  It’s where we were living when I was born.  That one had a garage underneath the living quarters. 

Oh, and Cailyn spent the day with us yesterday as well.  She joined me on the only break I did take, which was to go over to Randall’s and pick up a few prescriptions.  We did have some fun while we were there, though.  Randall’s has the shopping carts with the little toy car attached to the front so kids can sit in it and pretend to drive.  Cailyn headed straight for one of those and we took off.  She asked right away, “What’s our first stop, DadDad?”  I told her we needed to pick up some oranges, so she began turning the steering wheel in earnest.  Fortunately we managed to avoid any collisions as we made our way to the produce section.  And from there it was off to the pharmacy.  For some reason this time she admonished me to “drive slowly, DadDad.”  So I of course obliged.  We wove our way, creeping around end caps and through the flower department, dodging other shoppers who all seemed to be grinning at us for some reason.  Glad we could make some people’s life a bit happier.  We picked up the drugs and headed back towards the exit.  This time, though, Cailyn was feeling a bit more adventurous.  “Let’s go really, really, really, really fast this time, DadDad.”  I think it was four “reallys.”  I’m not sure.  I lost count, but I got the message.  We didn’t have much area to cover, and like any self-respecting grandfather, I had to come up with some way to satisfy her need for speed.  So we began a series of swerves instead.  Good choice.  She squealed and grabbed her steering wheel tighter and went with the flow, so to speak.  By the time we arrived at the cart station, she hopped out, looking exhausted.  “Whew,” she exclaimed, “Thanks, DadDad.  That was really fast.”  Made my day.  Ah, the life of a “works only one day a week” pastor. 

Psalms 68:19 says, “Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.”

Father, thank you for those brief moments of joy in the day that make the rest of it easier to endure.  Amen.