Thwarted?

Today was a day of being tested. The tragedy is that they weren't even big tests!

This morning I had grand plans of catching up on laundry. Do you ever have those great plans? You're excited that your day is taking shape, you're going to accomplish so much, and you just feel eager, satisfied, ambitious as you begin to implement your plans and goals.

Until I realized something that either I had never known or had completely forgotten about. It was someone else's laundry day.

My first reaction included thoughts of: why did no one tell me? (well, they might have, but I'm known for my forgetfulness) or "a whole day? that's not fair!" and on... So I thought to myself - your plans for the day have been thwarted, and that's why you're frustrated. But that happens all the time! We can't control our lives, much less the lives of those around us, and those lives certainly intermingle with our own at times. So, I prayed, asked God to help me be more gracious, patient, thoughtful of others, recognize the fact that I have every other day of the week, essentially, to do laundry. And I was quite proud of the way that (God) and I handled it.

[To boot, I've been priding myself on doing such a great job at living "in community". That means sharing. Not getting your way all the time.]

Sometimes, when my day starts out with something like that (big or small) it taints the rest of my day, and I am much more easily frustrated than I would be otherwise, and much quicker to get impatient and so-and-so. So that was part of asking the Holy Spirit to work in me today, that I would be able to completely be set free from my feelings of frustration.

The rest of the day went well - mostly because I was holed up in my room studying, with no opportunities of others to impinge on my life in any way. Tonight I decided I needed to bake some biscuits. I have a fantastic recipe that produces delovely biscuits in 30 minutes! So on went the oven and I got to work mixing up everything. 10 minutes later, the fire alarm went off, as the [empty] oven started to smoke lightly due to a few microscopic crumbs (they were pretty small) on the bottom. My landlord opens the door from upstairs to make sure everything is ok and gently reminds me that the fire alarms are connected throughout the house - ie. if it goes off downstairs, it's just as loud upstairs.

Part of me feels terrible - and part of me gets so frustrated because again, my plans are being thwarted - and even more so, it's just not me who suffers, but every single person who happens to be at home!

[this is the 3rd time the fire alarm has gone off, by the way. the first 2 were due to lightly toasted cinnamon raisin bagels]

So, after letting a few tears of frustration - at myself, at the limitations I find hampering my culinary skills - I ask God to help me once again, to help me handle this wisely, graciously.

In the end, I let the oven cool off, cleaned out the crumbs, scrubbed off any remnant of burnt bits that remained, and tremulously turned the oven back on one more time - at a considerably lower temperature. The biscuits might not cook at the temperature they're supposed to, but they'll still do, and it will be worth it to keep the house quiet. At double the normal time, I ever so carefully opened the oven door, hoping and praying that the fire alarm would not go off, and the biscuits finally emerged from the oven - crisp, golden on top, and I think delicious inside!

Now for some chili and biscuits for dinner, and a couple more hours of studying!

And I'm grateful to the Lord for the opportunity to practice walking in his footsteps and for his enabling throughout.