This morning I was given a blessing that I will not soon forget. Today was the last day of class at the community college before the beginning of spring break next week. This morning, as I was getting my two-and-a-half year old daughter ready to take to the sitter’s house, she decided that she didn’t want to go and began taking off her shoes and socks as I was trying to put on her jacket. Somehow in the process of getting ready and getting out the door, I forgot to grab my keys. About the time I heard the door firmly shut behind me I remembered that I had not taken them off the hook near the front door.
As I stopped between the car and front door of the townhouse, my neighbor asked me if something was wrong. Apparently my face still indicated my frustration of locking myself out of the car and the house! I told him what had happened and he was nice enough to call our complex’s maintenance man to come let me back into my home. After waiting for twenty minutes, the maintenance man finally arrived and by the time I did grab my keys and headed out of the complex, I realized that there was no way to get to both the babysitter’s house and where this morning’s class was without being late. Because the course is a dual credit course, I knew that both high school and college students would be waiting on me. With spring break starting, I could not cancel the class, so feeling that I had no other decision available, I decided to take my daughter, my two-and-a-half year old daughter, to a college level class.
As I pulled out onto the highway and headed south, my daughter began pointing to the various sites we’ve driven past each morning that I have taken her to the sitter. When we didn’t make the expected turn off that heads towards the babysitter’s house, my daughter began to point to the new scenery and with great excitement in her voice, began to ask me “what’s that, Daddy?” As we passed by buildings, trucks, school buses, and even a traffic light, I noticed the questions were beginning to slow down and within fifteen minutes, the child that I had fought with to get her out of the house, was peacefully asleep in her car seat.
I took a moment, a deep breath, and instead of panicking as I often do, I just asked the Lord to give me the strength to be there for both my college students and my daughter and asked him to bless this morning and to keep my daughter from being a distraction to my students. As I continued to pray for members of the church, my family, and friends that have asked me to keep things in prayer for them, a verse came into my mind: My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him (Psalms 62:5). As I was trying to figure out how this verse applied to this particular situation, another verse came into mind: I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me (Psalm 8:17). Yes, instead of panicking, instead of worrying about what others might think of me bringing my daughter to work, and instead of trying to find a way out of the situation, I simply turned to God first, prayed about the situation, and waited for him to answer.
