Swamped

So it's been a difficult week here. Several different influences, all of which are only moderately disturbing, have been chipping away at me. I've very much appreciated the emails and other communications that friends have sent along. They encourage me. Day-to-day I'm holding up above water, and I know His mercies are new every morning, but my boat has been riding lower and lower into the water as the days go by.  This morning, my little dinghy got swamped.

Mark had to have a meeting with the students this morning, so he couldn't go to church with us. I REALLY wanted to go, but I knew that while I could carry Marky for the mile walk, I certainly couldn't manage Joel too. So I figured out the bus system for getting there--it's not that far, and just off of the same road we live off of--it can't be hard, right?

Right! We managed the bus--hop on and hop off, really just a couple of minutes' ride. Okay! Hmmm....we were so efficient we were 45 minutes early. Doh!

We hung out at the back while the worship team practiced. Joel sat nicely and listened and sang along. Noelle twirled around in circles, dancing. Marky ran shrieking and squealing in large loops,  climbing up on the furniture so that I would tell him to get down. We did this for some time until I thought it was close enough to service time to check out the nursery and drop Mr. Squeals off. Pick up the bundle of coats and shuffle together back toward the 'centre.' No dice. Shuffle back to sanctuary to look for someone to ask.

A kind-looking cleric bustles by me en route to something else. "How are you?" he smiles and asks...
"Oh...I'm okay."
"Can I help you with anything?" he asks.

At this point the crazy American woman bursts into tears and starts bawling.

Bet he wasn't expecting that.

She cries while she tries to explain that she doesn't know where to put the children because last week everything was different since it was still summer. She snuffles and says, "I'm not actually insane, I just..."

He asks of the children's ages, and whether or not Joel is in "Reception."

To which crazy sobbing woman says, "I'm American, and I don't know what that is!"

"So am I," he replies. Ah yes. The tremendous non-roundness of your vowels. I probably would have noticed if I hadn't been weeping.

Well...you can imagine the rest of this interaction. He asks if I want to sit down. He asks if he can carry my big pile of jackets for me. He kindly directs me to the helpful childcare people and asks one in particular to be my guide before excusing himself.

These folks start to sort things out with me (why is this woman crying? it's Sunday school!), even though they ask me about "Reception" again. Marky decides the nursery suits him fine as soon as he sees the train set. Noelle is eager not to be late to her class; and Joel...well...Joel bursts into tears and clings to my leg because he can't join Noelle.

The awesome woman who is leading the nursery hands me a flier about the Thursday morning Bible study and invites me.
She says, "I thought it started last week, and I was so disappointed!"
"So was I..." tears, tears...
"But this week will be awesome."
"Thank you, I intend to come," I snuffle.
"I must hug you!" she exclaims.

Thank you. Please. Let me be your friend.

Now I must take my weeping face and my cling-wrap son and go into church.

Ultimately, Joel comes into the church service with me, where I weep through the praise time and am extremely thankful I brought tissues. Having had a good long cry, my head hurts and I really want to stop. Besides trying to give all of this upsetness over to the Lord, it's embarrassing to keep bursting into tears in front of all these strangers.

Everything else was fairly uneventful. Joel turned off his shyness and upsetness as if with a switch when he determined that the likelihood of his getting a snack was significantly higher in his class than in big church. He marched down the hall like he'd been there forever and enjoyed himself. (And, yes, there was snack) The kind cleric came over directly to me at the "pass the peace" time, and I managed to exchange pleasantries without re-crying. The sermon was encouraging.  Marky was still playing trains when I picked him up. Noelle was excited about her time too. We found the appropriate bus stop after only one botched attempt....and we made it home.

Now I'm here supervising Marky's nap while Mark takes the other kids to the Tower of London with the JMU students for a Group Outing. Later, they're all coming over here for dinner, but I'm happy to say that a local Italian restaurant is doing the cooking. So all I need to do now is straighten a bit. And take a nap.

I hope you found this at least a little bit humorous, because I think it's simultaneously sad and hilarious.
Looking for a better week this week,
Love,
K