A Shift in Perspective on a Snow Day

Last Wednesday, after two full days inside, I finally took myself and my boys out of the house and into the 15 degree weather to grab an early dinner with my friend, Nancy and her family.  As we sat at the table waiting for our food, we received the news that school would be cancelled again Thursday and yet again Friday, making it a full Snow Week of kids at home, cancelled meetings, cancelled basketball practices, cancelled bedtimes and cancelled routine and schedule.   I have a touch of the OCD going on and love me some routine and I despise me some cold.  So this is what happened when Nancy's giddy daughter told us that there was no school for the rest of the week.

Oh, the drama.  I can't even lift my face out of my hands.  PA.THE.TIC, right?  Do you want to slap me?  Don't worry.  I got that slap later.

Now, my despair was not all about the kids being up in my grill all day because due to the endless Madden 2KWhatever, they are quite busy turning their minds so into mush that they forget they have a mom to bother. My problem is a lot about claustrophobia and a Texas gal's fear of driving in the snow.  It's about the fact that there is plenty of fish and chicken and vegetables in the fridge, but Miss Whiney(uncomfortably tight) Pants decides to equate snow days with chili dogs and nachos.  It's that darn treadmill in that darn basement and how I need pavement under my feet and real air in my lungs.

But if I am honest, it is also often about those darn kids.  It's about the arguing and the snow boots and the clothes strewn about.  It's about the fact that this one likes cheese on his sandwich, but this one doesn't and this one left his cereal bowl out making a milk ring on the table and this one ate the last cookie and this one or that one (but no one will admit which one) got chocolate on the new couch. It's about my guilt that I should be the mom who makes snow ice cream and homemade hot chocolate, but I.just.am.not.

Do you see?  It's, as usual, all about me.  It's about me and my comfort and my routine and my time.  It's about me missing the blessing right in front of me. It's about me forgetting my promise to Gavin Rupp to look hard for beauty every single day.

And I knew that I would forget.  And I know that I will again.  And I think Gavin knows it and God knows it.  And I will not beat myself up about it because I can ask myself What would Jesus do? all day every day, but I am not Him.  (And neither, by the way, are my children.  Y'all, they're just so darn loud.)  But, that's okay.  We just have to get a little switch in our viewpoint, dust off and try again.   

And that's why my work with Kyle's Kamp is a blessing . . .  a virtual snowball of perspective to the head, if you will. 

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