CONFIDENCE or confidence??????

Charles left for the Atlanta market this morning. He was waffling till the last second – needing to go but wishing he felt more passionate about the whole shopping for inventory experience. Daisy, Thurber, and I did our favorite Saturday morning thing – reading the Wall Street Journal. Well, I confess that, despite their intelligence, they really have not learned to read, but they do love Saturday morning and the slower pace…because it’s the only day of the week I go quite so slow. I love to read Peggy Noonan. She is an incredible writer even though I don’t always like what she has to say. She is not into Sarah Palin from what I read today. Bothered me a little.

Then I swept up the dog hair that seems to accumulate by the second. It is noon and I am in pure ecstasy – sitting with my computer, wearing my pajamas and talking to my dogs. Once upon a time, that was my total ambition. Then I learned that God is great at taking whatever minute morsel of your life you offer Him and working that Ephesians 3:20 formula – “the beyond all you ask , think, imagine or dream” – idea on your pitiful little don’t- expect- anything- special kind of life.

The Mississippi heat is stifling. I sadly confess that I spend at least thirty minutes of every day bemoaning the bad hair day that is a certainty in the Mississippi humidity. I can count on a run of bad hair days from now till mid October. Pitiful, I know. I confess, too that my guilty feelings are bigger than Dolly Parton’s hair – because I did promise God during my Breast Cancer experience that I would never ever complain about a bad hair day again. One more reason for me to recall grace and to remind myself we can’t ever expect to do “good” enough to earn a crumb’s worth of the “wonderful” He is forever doling out to us.

I am going to try ( key word…”try”) to be a really good steward of these two days without Charles. I am working on my book proposal praying someone besides my children and step-children who will receive copies as gifts will buy a copy. I am also hoping to do some real reading and thinking. Life does come at me fast and there are way too many hours of every day I spend in busy work that Uncle Sam requires or the sheer mechanics of business dictate. It is hard to keep up with my Jesus thoughts if my heart and soul are running on “empty.”

I have a constant laugh with several friends about the following. I guess I am pretty Southern tried and true – and tongue in cheek, I joke that I really thought I was meant to be a princess, but nobody but me ever got the memo. Well, what I guess I really mean by all that foolishness, is most of us girls yearn for SOMEBODY to take care of the unpleasant realities like bank accounts, financial statements, profit and loss information, and all those scary components of business. God is forever treating me like a Mama Eagle who nudges her babies out of the nest. He gives me challenges and then promises to supply my strength and my need. Just as he nudges me over the edge, and I close my eyes and panic, He swoops beneath my flailing arms to provide His safety net…just an incredible reminder that He has engraved my name on the palms of His hands and He is in charge…and I am thrilled because I do not want to be in charge of anything harder than putting the bread in the toaster tomorrow morning. I am glad He knows my address, my e-mail, and my cell phone number. Psalm 139 says, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where shall I flee from your presence?’ Whew…I like that whole idea. So glad He’s an always there God.