One day at a time

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you are feeling so stretched, or stressed or overwhelmed that you have no choice but to take things one day at a time?  That's where I am today.  In my effort to transition well, and make Texas feel like our home, I have invested more energy in the tasks at hand than I have in making sure I was resting.  I could feel myself getting tired but we still have a considerable amount of things to do that the achiever in me felt like I had no choice but to keep checking things off the list.  You see, probably 10 tens times a day I think about running an errand that I don't know how to run.  Even though I have successfully located the grocery store, the library, the YMCA and our community center, I don't know how to get to the post office or any of the places that I normally run my errands like bed bath & beyond, Kohls and Sherwin Williams.  

Earlier this week I found myself feeling stuck and discouraged and in an attempt to correct those feelings, I decided to venture out and find Kohls.  I quickly looked it up on my phone, picked a location in a town I knew was safe and headed out with Nicole.  The highways here are poorly labeled, there are frontage roads to everything and seemingly endless amounts of one-way streets.  I've gotten turned around quite a bit in my other adventures here but I've always been able to correct it.  This day was different.  We were less than 20 minutes from home but I ended up being so lost that I didn't know how to fix it.   I continued to try and find my way but since I had never driven in the area before, I felt like my GPS was speaking a foreign language to me and I couldn't comprehend what I was supposed to do.  After 45 minutes, I finally pulled over and called Shawn to come and get us.  I had wanted to turn around multiple times before that but I didn't know how to get us home so I kept trying to find our original destination.  I was scared, discouraged and disoriented and I needed someone with a better sense of direction than me to come and lead the way home.  Shawn, in all of his graciousness, left work and came to find us.  He got us home safely without any problems and needless to say, Nicole and I have been sticking close to home ever since.  

I debated whether or not to tell you about that experience because I still get a little teary eyed when I think about it and I don't have a fresh or empowering perspective to take hold of yet.  But, as I cried and prayed and kept telling God, "I just wanted to go to Kohls!", I felt this gentle reminder to take things one day at a time.  And in that reminder, I thought, "where would I be without faith?" I still don't know how to get to Kohls and many things remain on my to-do list, but I have complete confidence that God sees my weariness and He is present in it.  I know that God cares for me in ways I could never even comprehend and He is walking with me.

With love,
Erica