the morning bread

This morning, between getting three girls ready for summer school / sports camp, making breakfast, finding shoes and doing hair and changing diapers, I was swigging desperately at my coffee and pushing fervently through a few Psalms, and marked this one, Psalm 50.  That's powerful, I thought, there will be a day when I will need that one.

Our God approaches, 
He is not silent.
So make thankfulness your sacrifice to God.
Call on me when you are in trouble
And I will rescue you
and you will give me glory.

Turns out that day came a lot sooner than I expected!

Rick and Carol's flight was cancelled Monday so the kids and I have been holding down the campus the last few days. Of course that means that today I got a flat tire on one of the many, now appallingly 20 minute, TWO MILE school runs of the day. That we have no hot water and I don't know how to fix it. That Micheline had an appointment in Port-au-Prince all week.  That this week Nora decided she wanted to try school.

Which means today I spent three very loud and very precious and very unproductive, long hours in preschool with 25 three and four year olds. There when Nora wished mommy was there, Mommy was there, which got less and less as the day went on.

It means today I had a whopping 30 minutes of office time, but that Rujerry popped in for 20 of them and shared his awesome testimony of their missions trip to Gonaives, complete with how God powerfully worked the day they were evangelizing in the yard of a witchdoctor's temple in the midst of a lot of persecution and anger and ended up leading four miserable people to complete freedom in the Lord.

It means the girls brought home several precious friends from school and all ate me out of house and home and were frustrated that Ben kept wrecking the barbies and were so scared of the dogs that no one could play outside, and that when I tried to show them that the dogs are friendly, the massive full-grown german shepherd puppy jumped on me and almost knocked me down and scratched my neck and terrified Ben.

When dad's gone, when no one's here, the mail comes, and then it all starts getting rained on, and I'm unlocking neighbors houses and lugging boxes in the rain with the Ben and the scary dogs and therefore burned dinner and I'm praying for board meetings all day and for our fantastic board and for my beloved husband who carries such a load, and on the flip I'm trying not to think about how they're all eating dinner at Buca di Peppo (which suddenly sounds so air-conditioned, and so quiet, and so adult, and so delicious that I could melt) and praying for my new brothers and sisters Rujerry told me about and in the middle I'm making thankfulness my sacrifice to God.

I'm so thankful for these precious children (someone tell me when are there not a million things to pick up? when does that happen???) I'm so thankful they love their school and their friends and their teachers (I cannot believe I now have three children in school! I'm not ready!) I'm so thankful for the bountiful food God continues to provide for us so we can share it continually with others (why does it all have to take so long to make?) and I'm so thankful for the grace that everyone I am here to share Jesus with, from the preschool teacher to the night-watchman, bestows so freely on me.  It's from Him.

He helped me, the morning Bread that lasted all day, He helps me, and as "our God approaches", I am just never anywhere close to alone.  

When the days roar, He is not silent.

Glory to God.