The Calendar…a day by day plan to manage the blessings in my life

I just got back from a meeting at church. To start the meeting, the committee chair read a lovely devotional written by a mother vowing that she was going to not move into the frenzy of the school year with the short patience, stress inducing, morning chaos that seemed to rule her morning interactions with her children.  She was going to figure out a better way to manage her blessings.  I loved that phrase-manage my blessings. The reading resonated with me particularly today.

 I’m not sure why, but both my husband and I went with our youngest to her middle school orientation this afternoon.  Now in years gone by, generally for the older two children it was me hauling a baby or toddler in tow, sole adult, trying to get in and out with the schedule, locker combination, fall activity registration, and school store purchases as quickly as possible.  Maybe because she is the baby and we are holding onto that last bit of dependency on us, we both wanted to go with her-big mistake.  While my daughter had it in her head to get in, get done what she has to, and avoid being seen with her parents, my husband used the time to try and initiate better organization this school year and went into micromanagement mode.  I on the other hand, ridiculously go the other way, and play to the social aspect of orientation.  I chat with the other parents, get caught up on summer vacations of which I’ve seen pictures and posts on Facebook, and share in wonder with my fellow moms that we can’t believe our kids are in their last year of middle school. 

We discover “I” brought the wrong locker shelves-the ones we bought by mistake in 6^th grade that didn’t fit the locker then and still don’t now.  We suggest she just leaves her things anyway and we’ll drop her off next week and she can rearrange her locker. My husband urges her to walk through her schedule so she knows her route between classes.  She’s annoyed because she has been in this school for three years and knows how to get from class to class.  By the time we are home, she’s done with us, and heads up to her room to text friends she didn’t see to compare schedules, my husband is ticked that her violin she forgot at school on the last day is still locked up, and I just want to login to my office and get back on track with work having left mid-day. This was not exactly the start to a new school year any of us wanted. 

The devotional reading was well needed tonight.  And while I know there will be stressors related to school, work, marriage, parenting, and life in general, these are for the most part, first world issues.  In order to do a better job of managing my blessings, I have decided to start a calendar in which I do just that.  Starting September 1, I will  share one event, circumstance, person, place or thing, that I need to see in new way, see truly as a blessing to be managed, rather than an obstacle to overcome.  Why September 1^st?  For me, the time to make resolutions is more in line with the start of the school year.  There is something about getting back into the learning mindset that makes it feel like the time is right for change.  I’d love to read the ways you manage the blessings in your life, so please share a thought or two with a comment. May your cup of blessings run over.