On Birthdays and Mother's Day

On Saturday, my younger son "Phineas" celebrated his 10th birthday party at the Ice Arena with 15 friends. It went well considering he has never ice skated before. But all of them had fun even the two friends who suffered minor injuries 10 minutes before the end of the 3-1/2 hour party. We then had family over to our house for an after-party party.

On Mother's Day, Phineas and I went to the first service at church where our Pastor shared all the things that happened during their recent outreach in Iraq. God is working in a mighty way in the Middle East. I left church wondering why we do not see great manifestations of God's work here. But as the day unfolded, I realized God is not just working over there, He is working here, too.

Our family planned to meet at a favorite Chinese restaurant for dim sum. Unfortunately, the rest of our town had the same plan. So instead of waiting 2 hours for 12 of us to be seated, I called my siblings to tell them I am just going to order food to go. Since they were still at my Dad's house (punctuality is not our family's strong suit), I told them to we will just go there with the food.

Ordering dim sum off a list is not as much fun as watching the carts pass by to see what looks good. There was a little confusion - uhm, no I didn't want THAT. They were trying to speak to me in Chinese which I could not understand at all. Granted, I took a year of Mandarin but that was over 20 years ago. The only phrase I remember translates to "Where is the cat?" which is neither helpful nor appropriate in this situation. Eventually, I made it out of there with a decent amount of food for all of us.

I don't know which part of "We'll meet you there" my brother did not understand. In my book, "there" means we will come to wherever location you happen to be. Stay put. Do not move. Certainly, do not drive 30 miles to our house because we're heading in the opposite direction. Since two families are heading to our house, we were outnumbered and had no choice but to turn around. Hosting another family event AFTER the birthday party the day before was not how I wanted to celebrate Mother's Day. So there was some major pouting going on.

But you know what? God has plans that we know nothing about.

When we got home, I noticed that my sister-in-law was limping. She said she woke up with pain in her right foot from skating. (Ok, so make that 3 injuries). Well, the Urgent Care is 5 minutes from my house and they accept my brother's out of town insurance. So, I took my sister-in-law there and she was diagnosed with a torn ligament. They gave her crutches and some meds to help with the pain. That's why God engineered the event to take place at our house. If we had gone to my Dad's as I had planned, she never would have gone to the urgent care facility because of the distance.

My sister-in-law is not a believer and I am thankful that after I had calmed down, I was able to minister to her and help her. I would like to think that maybe like the believers in Iraq, she saw a little bit of the love of Jesus through me. God certainly works in mysterious ways, in big ways and in small. I am just glad and grateful that He gives us the privilege to be a part of it.