Overcoming (or not!) Frustration

I said at the beginning of the year that, barring almost anything, I would make a post on here once a week, usually on Saturday mornings.  Yesterday, though, I just couldn't get myself to share...I kept thinking, "You know, I should really get on and vent just so everybody could see that  Mary Hood has bad days,too!"  It was just one of those days when everything that could go wrong, did!  My husband was getting ready to leave for three weeks on a work assignment, my car was acting up,  and the work I was supposed to be doing as an appraiser was incredibly frustrating.  

I know, though, that my real frustration is that I feel like I'm wasting valuable time doing all this real estate work.  I know in my heart that my destiny is still in the field of parent education, that I have a lot of important things left to accomplish helping homeschooling families, and that I'm not a spring chicken anymore...Once you hit 60, which I did last year, you start feeling the clock ticking.  I just can't understand why God seems to be keeping me marching in place right now when I so much want to be charging ahead.  I can visualize so clearly the place we're trying to create, a conference center in the Georgia Mountains....I can see the children putting on plays on the porch of the log cabin, the moms having fellowship around the campfire, the teens making memories at summer camps...but, right now it seems  that, in the words of the song, "Only trouble is, gee whiz, I'm dreaming my life away."

I wish I had some miraculous concluding paragraph that sums up how I found peace and contentment in the midst of it all...but I'm afraid those aren't really my strong suits, especially right now! Oh, I can QUOTE it...(Philippians 4:11...for I have learned in whatever state I am, therewith to be content."  Living that statement out isn't always quite that easy.

The one thing I have learned, over the years, is that sometimes God just does that...stops us in our tracks for awhile, perhaps confined to a bed, perhaps sick and pregant, perhaps fighting emotional problems, maybe just wrestling with a third grade who can't learn her multiplication facts. Whatever he has us going through, it usually turns out to be some kind of a learning experience, or maybe even a blessing in disguise.  I've also learned that I can try to figure out the reason until the cows come home, but sometimes, it is just isn't going to happen.  Then all any of us can do is to try to trust God, hope for the future, and keep sloshing through the present, one foot ahead of the other, until we come out on the other side.

I do have one thing to look forward to this weekend...whatever happens the next three days, on Thursday I'm headed off to Austin to speak at a fair and meet some of you!  I'm really looking forward to that, and hope the snow and ice go away so all you Texans can come out and enjoy it with me.  For info, go to http://www.trustinlearning.info/.  Hope to see you there!