Is that what you call . . . living authentically?

So, we made korker ribbon today for a new adventure we are embarking on.

We wrapped the grosgrain ribbon around pencils (for I didn't have dowel rods on hand) and spun it around and around and attached it to the pencils with clothes pegs. Then they went into the oven for 25 minutes and the heat was applied so that the ribbon would stay curly. It worked.

That is how I feel my day has gone - I just spun around and around. The older children were at piano lessons this morning with their Dad and I only had one little one at home, but didn't she have a grand old time getting into everything while I was working on some projects. I should have just played with her!

When the pianists returned home the excitment of what they purchased when they went shopping after their lessons for their little sister's birthday next week just kept escalating. Excitment; or chaos?

So, after homemade macaroni and cheese for lunch, I decide to make korker ribbon. It went fine.

It was the spelling lessons afterward where the heat was applied. I had two children working and the little one playing with playdough. The next thing I knew she had the small top of a marker lid in her mouth.  It scared me!! I over reacted - I got it out ok, but my fears took over and in a very loud and stern voice told everyone to stop what they were doing and pick up every small little thing around. 

  

We picked up anything little we could see and went back to our lessons.

But I was spinning.

I took the time for some quiet and read these words:

O Father in heaven, who didst fashion my limbs to serve Thee and my soul to follow hard after Thee, with sorrow and contrition of heart I acknowledge before Thee the faults and failures of the day that is now past. Too long, O Father, have I tried thy patience; too often have I betrayed the sacred trust Thou has  given me to keep; yet Thou art still willing that I should come to Thee in lowliness of heart, as I now do, beseeching Thee to drown my transgression, in the sea of Thine own infinite love.

My failure to be true even to my own accepted standards;
 
My self-deception in the face of temptation;
 
My choosing of the worse when I know the better;
 
O Lord, forgive.
 
My failure to apply to myself the standards of conduct I demand of others;
 
My blindness to the suffering of others and my slowness to be taught by my own;
 
My complacence toward wrongs that do not touch my own case and my over-sensitiveness to those that do;
 
My slowness to see the good in my fellows and to see the evil in myself;
 
My hardness of heart towards my neighbors’ faults and my readiness to make allowance for my own;
 
My unwillingness to believe that Thou hast called me to a small work and my brother to a great one.
 
O Lord, forgive."

Before bed we read a chapter from The House at Pooh Corner from the Winnie the Pooh series by A.A. Milne. All morning Pooh keeps getting distracted with what he plans to accomplish. He thinks he will go visit Piglet, but is distracted in his thoughts and actions. He ends up walking in circles, getting nothing accomplished and finds himself back at his own house at 11:00 - the time he always eats a little smackeral of something. 

I related to Pooh Bear today - spinning around and not really accomplishing what I set out to do.

How often I choose the worse when I know the better.

 
Too often I fail to apply to myself the standards of conduct I demand of others.

When tucking in my children to bed tonight I had to apoligize and ask them to forgive me for my lack of self control. What I had said was all true, but I had subjected them to my fear. I had let fear control me. They said, of course they forgive me.

It was their prayers for me that struck me.

Yes, I spun today and the heat was applied, and by God's grace at the end of the day all was fine.