Ice Cream for Dinner!??!!?

There is no tired like "getting ready to open up a church campus" tired.  I am completely exhausted...blessed, but exhausted!

First, we started our weekend with football practice at 7:30am.  Seriously....it's the weekend and I am not a morning person....but I braved the morning and was actually the second car to get to practice.  #2 wants to jump out of the car and start practicing....
#2:  Let's go!!!!  It's practice.
Me:  Listen.  I'm tired and I don't drink coffee....give me a minute.
....I mean, I'm not even one you wanna talk to in the morning.  I warm up about an hour after I wake up, but I'm pretty sure that on the weekends, it takes me two hours.

So #2 has this wonderful practice and then we head to Butler County.  We are ready for a work day at the church building.  I walked in and thought "unless there is a miracle, we will look absolutely awful tomorrow".  Things were everywhere.  I had to walk over things to get to other things.  I was heartbroken.  But you know what?  God DOES perform miracles and He truly did!  That building was READY for our practice run.  I mean room were cleaned, drawers had supplies, people had curriculum, the worship team had sound, the chairs had pockets....

OH WAIT....the chairs.  I'm telling you, I am very particular about things....I mean VERY.  I like things placed perfectly.  As a musician, people think it's strange that I'm organized and actually like to plan.  So you get a bunch of people that work on these chairs and you think it will be done quickly.  Every time I needed to ask someone and had to go into the auditorium, the chairs were either being moved or talked about.  I finally looked at Hubby and said "seriously....they are chairs....there is way too much to do".  And even this morning when looking at the auditorium, I looked at those chairs and thought "well, it was worth the three hours that was spent moving and talking about them cuz they look good"...except there are no back pockets...but that's a different story.....

This morning, we got up and we were in a panic....Hubby had to go get stuff out of his office, meet people at Starbucks to get stuff, get coffee from Starbucks cuz our coffee plug isn't in yet, and then come back to pick us up and head to Butler County!

We got to the building and it just felt weird....like, good weird.  We had our volunteers show up and we talked about going through the entire lesson, writing questions and needs down, and talking to us about things.  We've been calling this our "dry run" for months.  Well, it wasn't a dry run cuz one of our precious kiddos talked about wanting to accept Christ.  I mean, you can't call that a practice, right?!?!?!  Today was amazing!!!

I'm gonna get a little mushy......so hold on.....
I am so completely blessed.  One of my closest friends came to me and said that her and her husband can see how God has worked in our lives....how God has been in this plan for years....and how amazing it is.  I mean, God HAS been working on us.  We've been broken....oh so broken.  We've been hurt.  We've been used.  But through those valleys, we still relied on God.  In fact, God was the only place we could go because we were put in such isolation.  We didn't quit.  We didn't turn away.  We didn't say "see you God".  We knew there was no other option but to stay closer to God.  We kept close and close to our family.  We've been through job loss.  We've been through cancer.  We've been through the unknown with medical tests on #3.  We've been through big disappointments.  And my friend is right....through all that we've been through, God had a plan all along.  Such a marvelous plan and so much more than we ever thought it would be.  Our plan was mediocre compared to the plan that God has put before us.  And I'll tell you....as I look back at the pain, disappoints, heartaches, brokenness, and the unknown, I will say that I see how God worked.  I didn't see it all at the time, but God knew what he was doing....I'm just glad we followed His path and not our own.
....mushy segment over.

So tonight, the #'s begged Hubby to watch Star Wars Episode 4....
Me:  Okay....go take your shower and you all can watch the movie.
#s:  But we haven't had dinner yet!!!!
Me:  How in the world can you be hungry?!?!?  We just ate lunch.
#s:  We've GOT to have dinner!
Me:  Ice cream for dinner.
#s:  WHAT!??!!?
Me:  There's no way you're hungry....you can have ice cream for dinner.
#1:  Are you kidding?
Me:  No.
#1:  Who are you and where is my mom?
Me:  Do you want ice cream for dinner or not?
#s:  YES!!!!  YAY!!!!  ICE CREAM FOR DINNER!!!!!!!
....yeah, I am THAT exhausted.  So....goodnight from our life by numbers!