The day I didn't stab my eyeballs out.

As it was for many mid-western families, it's been a long month in the ol' Peterson abode. The kind that makes you want to stab your eyeballs out with a fork.

For those of you who aren't midwesterners, here's the scene: It's the tail end of a very long Christmas vacation, and a crazy snowpocolypse / polar vortex plops itself over your house. For four days the roads were closed to all unnecessary travel, leaving us trapped at home for way longer than any sane family should stay in close proximity.
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Did you catch that? 5,760 minutes. In my tiny house. With my family of six. Which yes, includes a special little boy who doesn't like it when you mess with his schedule. At all.

And I can't even send the kids out to play in that lovely winter wonderland, cause it's like -30*.

And my three homeschoolers still have school work to do, so they are not free to play with that bored, off kilter rascal who would rather lay on the floor and scream for an hour than pick up a toy to play by himself for fifteen minutes.

Eye roll.

So when I say it's been a stressful month, you can nod and smile and say "bless your sweet heart," when I confess that I actually drugged my youngest nine year old to get him to sit and watch a movie for an hour so I could think. Don't laugh. My doctor told me I could.

And I'll let you guess just how whiny and desperate my prayers sounded during those rough moments. Those moments where stabbing my eyeballs out sounded like a very good idea. Have you been there? Please say yes.

But as we all know, those are the moments where God comes closest, and this time was no different. I think I was on day three of my imprisonment when He interrupted my crazy stream of whining to ask me this:

Do you want Me to change the situation, or do you want Me to change YOU?

And in my finite human wisdom I countered with: Do you want me to answer that like an overly stressed out human being, or do you want me to answer it like a child of God? Because to be honest, right now I just want You to change the situation.

Which of course He didn't.The winds kept blowing, and the cranky boy stayed cranky.

He changed me. By the grace of God I didn't stab my eyeballs out. Nor did I feed my children to the snow drifts. I took it one moment at a time. And we got through it.

I'll bet you saw that one coming.

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