Perspective

With Christmas behind us, we loaded up the F-250 (the entire bed of the truck was filled with trash bags of gifts) and set off to Atlanta in the snowy weather. Our trip was going great until Paul pulled off to the side of the road on an exit ramp because the car was acting funny...minutes later the entire cab was filled with smoke.

One hour outside of Atlanta, I was frustrated (thankfully kept my cool) and started thinking that I wasn't going to be able to unpack all of the Christmas gifts, clean the house, etc. so I can start my week off right. I texted Elena, Jenn and Mary Heather to see if I could find ANYONE who would drive one hour north to pick up me and the girls...unfortunately, there aren't many tow trucks with a second row option for a family of four (with their two dogs).

My phone started blinking so I checked it for an answer. The text from Jenn read:

Hey girls, April wanted me to update you that Jack is in ICU. I should know more soon and will send updates. Let's pray.

Jack is April's 15 year old brother who is fighting brain cancer. He went into respiratory failure (unsure of if it was Christmas day or the day after) and is now about to go in for a MRI to see what is going on.

To me, this was God's little nudge to tell me that all of these "to do's" that I focus on and bend over backwards to get done really aren't important at all. The fact is, they will get done. All of the things that I get stressed about aren't really all that stressful. So we called a cab and I got to take the hour ride back to Atlanta with Bill and his dog Dino, along with my two healthy little girls and a new perspective on how to go about life in 2011.