Purple puppies and sprained ankles

Today was a bittersweet day; graduation day for Surfer Boy.  I'm really not sure how it got to this point so quickly, but let me back up and start a few weeks ago to tell this story.......

Graduation is coming and my house could use being bulldozed and built again  a little touching up to get ready for the overnight guests as well as the graduation party planned.  So I planned a week of painting and other projects to be done the week or so before the in-laws arrived.  It was all going semi according to plan when J threw a wrench in the works.  It seems that his boss required him to travel the last 4 days before his parents arrived.  He would not get home before they got here.  Okay, so all the projects I needed him to do for me, I would have to do myself.  "That's okay", I thought, "I can do this. I'm a grown, clumsy  competent woman.  I can handle this."  I didn't worry too much.  I can handle a paint brush and screw driver as well as the next person.  I had no idea the fate that awaited me.

Picture it; it's Friday night and J is taking me out to dinner.  I've been working hard, he's about to leave and we need a little couple time.  I am waltzing  floating gliding  slumping down the stairs carrying my cup of coffee when the unthinkable happens.  Actually, I guess it wasn't actually unthinkable, I mean it really shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone who knows me.  Anyway, I fell.  Not your typical stumble-down-a-few-stairs-grab-the-rail-and-recover type of fall.  Nope, one foot slipped right off the front of the stair as I stepped down and the other one doubled back up under me and I fell, in a most unladylike way, down 2/3 of the stairs.  J could hear me hollering from outside.  I did not, however, spill my coffee!  What did you expect, it was in my favorite mug!  After a trip to the ER, final outcome - not broken, but a bad sprain.  So I found myself, in an air cast, on crutches, a house full of half finished painting projects, with a husband headed out of town and a whole passel of out of town guests coming in!  That's how the dog ended up purple.  Confused yet?  Keep reading.....

Because of my injury, I enlisted the help of the teenagers in the house.  Now before you are all impressed by their generous offer of service, it came at a price.  No, literally, a price.  It cost me a fortune to pay them to help me!  So that's how I ended up balanced on one foot on a ladder painting the upstairs hall bathroom while Surfer Boy's girlfriend, hereby referred to as Chinadoll because she looks like one, painted the down stairs bath a beautiful shade of lilac purple.  As I was teetering up on this ladder I caught Monkey Boy out of the corner of my eye slip past the bathroom door in a rather suspicious manner.  I jumped gracefully down  scrambled like a spider monkey down the ladder and caught him right as he was heading towards my bathroom.  "What's up?" I asked.  I did not expect his answer.  "Well," he said, "your dog is purple".  Not something you hear every day.  I have to admit that statement caught me a little off guard.  He turned around, holding my pretty little, pure white, bichon puppy straight out in front of him so I could see her entire side now matched the walls in the downstairs bath!  It seems a little goofing off happened and she was caught in the cross fire.  She looked like a punk rock pup.  All she was missing was a spiked collar and a few piercings!

We survived the home makeover, J returned, bringing his parents with him, the party went off with only several major, but survivable problems and, this morning, Surfer Boy and Chinadoll became graduates!  Now comes the fun part!

Surfer is feeling a little at loose ends.  Suddenly, he is no longer what he has been for the vast majority of his life; a student.   Sure, there are bigger and better things coming, but right now, he finds himself in the hallway on the way to the next open door.  It's a position that we can find a little overwhelming.

I have been in that place before, and I would bet that most of you have too.  You know it, that time when you know the Lord is moving out from something, but you're not quite sure what He's moving you into.  It's easy to be overwhelmed by frustration or anxiety.  It's normal to try to hang on to what we've known before, what we've trusted, what's comfortable.  But if we do that, we will never be able to move into what the Lord has for us.  Sure, we could sit down on the floor and refuse to move another foot.  We could hang on to the door frame in fear that the Holy Spirit is going to bodily move us from one place to another.  In most cases, it ain't gonna happen.  The Lord is a gentleman and he waits.  He waits for us to decide we want to move, he waits for us to get tired of sitting in the floor and get up and start walking again.  Sure, it can be scary, it can be overwhelming, it can be downright terrifying. But it can also be exciting, rewarding and exhilarating! 

My question to you this week, dear readers, is this;  How will you handle your hallways?  Will you see them as a place of transition or will you use them as real estate on which to build a summer home and stay a while?  Lets move! Lets step out in faith and run down the hallway after him!

This week, while I'm in my hallway, I'm going to challenge myself to keep moving forward, to not look back to where I was, but look with expectation to where he is taking me.  I would encourage you to do the same.

Meanwhile, I'll be here, rocking these crutches and using them to try to corral a purple pooch.  Till next time, I'm....

Soaked in His blessings,
Spokenfor