Well tonight I've had quite a struggle for sure. It seems that my entire life has been turned upside down like a bucket that someone is trying to get the last drop of everything out of. It's been shaken and turned and shaken some more and then tossed upside down on the ground so that I am unable to put even one drop of anything back in it. Nothing I put my hand or mind to since August is the same and I have had the fight of my life to maintain a positive thought.

The one thing that will happen tomorrow that's never happened in almost 22 years of parenting is I'll send my 14 year old son off to public school. He'll just be there to test for the day and we prayed for him tonight and he seems completely fine and maybe even a little excited but my heart is heavy and my stomach is queasy. And once again I find myself in the place of wondering, "How the heck did I get here?" I have argued with God and reasoned with Him and wondered and figured and struggled and cried and thrown my hands up in disgust but surprisingly enough He has said very little about any of my shenanigans except things like, "Let it go." or "Trust Me." or "Be still." Each of those has been at some point very very aggravating. He's not taken one of my suggestions. Not one. And so even though it sort of feels like I'm sending my baby boy, that is now taller than me, off like a lamb to the slaughter, it's what I have to do.

There have been way too many changes in my life in the last 6 months and I still have no idea what the next 6 holds for my family. I'm trying to cling to hope like a life raft but for the past 10 days I've been in the fight of my life. Just when I feel like I take 5 steps forward, I end up feeling 8 steps back. But then I got a late Elijah List word, which is very unusual, and it reminded me that if I'm striving for anything on my own then it's doing me absolutely no good. And so once again I'll give it all over to God for the billionth time and say I won't ever take over the planning of my future.....even though clearly I know and God knows that eventually I'll end up having more meetings with myself about what should happen next. But God is way more tolerant and loving and patient and forgiving and understanding and all of the good words than I could ever be so He'll forgive me again once I realize it again.

So please pray for the boy tomorrow and I'll give an update tomorrow night and hopefully it won't include me thumping some punk kid that was rude to Owen. And somehow if it's possible I just felt God shaking His head at me for the gazillionth time.

I'll end this with a few lines from the Francis Frangipane word that came tonight. It's title is "In the Face of the Impossible" and it sounds very familiar to me these days.

Francis Frangipane:
Do as He commands, for as you give the insufficiency of your skills and your pitiful provisions to Him, He will begin to bless and break you, and then multiply what you give Him miraculously. In all my years of ministry, I know of no transforming grace greater than that which comes when, in spite of our inadequacies, we obey God in the face of the impossible.