New Year's Has to Wait

Two weeks of sickness really brings out who we really are... sinners.

We have to be careful not to sin. Everyone is tired, feels bad and bored. Life and any semblance of routine is nonexistent. Placing one foot in front of the other is a chore, not to mention the mounds of dishes and laundry.

My goal for Christmas decorations every year is to have everything down and put away before Mary's birthday on the third. We were so far behind that we actually didn't even celebrate her birthday until the fifth.... And the decorations are still up and shining brightly, well, not too bright, they are covered in dust now. You know your Christmas decorations have been up too long if they need dusting this badly.

So, now that we have mostly recovered, I am trying to retrain an especially spoiled three year old. Abigail has been to two birthday parties in the past few days and revealed a serious sin nature! Having spent the past two weeks "Christmasing" and doing whatever it takes to survive, child training has been lacking here!

But not only is my three year in need of remembering how to behave, I am too. I have to keep reminding myself that just because I feel bad, I do not have permission to sin. The dishes can wait, I need to recover. The girls have felt bad too, they can wear wrinkled clothes.

The temptation is to feel sorry for myself when I look at how far I am behind. I'm not allowed to be grumpy and irritable about getting back to the routine. Tempers can easily get out of hand and the blame game could escalate.

Knowing these things, I decided to unplug my Christmas lights and let them continue gathering dust for a while longer. I am spending the afternoon looking at where we are in school and praying through those needs and other New Year's goals.


Here is the best picture I got of Mary blowing out the candles on her lame birthday cookie cake. (Much of the cake spilled all over the oven and is still there.) Maybe one of my New Year's goals should be to clean the oven....