The Mischevious Middle

Today was quite a day!  I started my morning going to my weekly bible study called "The Significant Woman".  Every week the devil tries his best to keep me from attending.  Today was probably one of the worst schemes he (the Devil) has used so far.  Here's what happened:  I got to the church campus a little early so I allowed Eli, the middle child, to get out of his car seat and play in the van while we waited.  We put Toy Story 3 in the DVD player.  Everyone was happy.  After a few minutes, I smelled a little present from Eli.  I got out of the van and went around to change the "shoo-shoo" diaper. I closed the doors so Eli wouldn't jump out into the parking lot while I walked maybe 10 feet to the nearest trash can.  As soon as the doors closed, Eli hit the power locks!!!!!  The keys, Baby Beau, and Eli were now all locked in the van which was still running!  I tried for 15 minutes from outside the van to coach Eli on how to unlock the door.  I was in tears!  I could hear Beau screaming inside.  Eli was having a hay day pressing EVERY button on the dash other than the unlock button!  He turned the windshield wipers on numerous times, the DVD off, the radio on, turned the volume all the way up to where I could hear the words to Taylor Swift's Never Ever song, and all I could do was cry and say "no-no". I called the hubs and he called a lock-smith.  Just then, the Lord sent a lady who worked at our church.  She saw me and my panicked attempt to get Eli to unlock the doors.  She says, "Are you locked out?". Through my tears, I cry out, "yes ma'am, and my kids are in there!".  she replies, "Ok, let me call and get the number to our locksmith on campus."  What do you know, our amazing church has someone who was able to quickly come to my rescue.  I called the hubs back and told him we didn't need the locksmith afterall.  The hubs still came to console me as I calmed down.  After my kids were safely out of the van, I dropped Eli off to his class and wiped my mascara covered face as I walked to my bible study.  Every week something crazy happens...I burn the casserole for our brunch, my van gets stuck in park before class and has to be towed, etc.  The Devil seriously doesn't want me to hear what the Lord has for me in this study.  But thankfully I have friends who encourage me to come back every week.  The Lord is teaching me about more than just how to be a Significant Woman and embrace who God created me to be; He is teaching me how to deal with the unexpected craziness, the bumps in the road, that I WILL encounter as I go through life. I need to lean on Him in times like these and find the lessons He is teaching me.  I'm so glad days like today don't happen every day!

Here are a few pics of Eli in the locked van.  You can see he wasn't too upset.  The kid just kept smiling.