At the End of the Day...

I realized today that a lot of my recent posts have been pretty positive. As I go through each day, though, things are not so positive.

Pretty much every day I wonder what in the world I think I am doing having 2 teenage girls that are not my own living in my house. SO many issues come up all the time, SO much drama surrounds almost everything we do and I get to the end of every day totally exhausted. At least a hundred times a day I ask God what in the world He was thinking...I ask myself if I really heard God say to take the girls in, and I wonder if I will make it to the end of the day.

The strange (and wonderful) thing is, though, that at the end of the day; when I sit down to write my blog posts, I am overwhelmed by the blessings of the day. Seriously. Every night as I sit down to write, as I replay the day in my head, I am nothing but thankful. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

I feel that way tonight. And when I tell you about my day, you will see why I am so surprised as the fact that while I am writing this I am smiling and thanking God for how blessed I am!

I have been promising the girls for about 2 weeks now that we would take a day off and go to the beach. Unfortunately, things kept coming up and we kept postponing it. Finally I stopped flaking out on them and we decided to go today.

We left about an hour after I wanted to, but we really didn't have to be any where at any time so it was okay. All of the AIM staff that is here for the summer came along with us (in their own van), so we had a good size crew (with me were Cupcake, Bonita, Linda and Linda's boyfriend, Rocky and then there were 5 AIM staff girls).

The drive up was fine (we went to Ocean City, NJ) and we had a cooler packed with food and drinks to make it through the day. We got there in a little less than 2 hours, but just as we were parking my car started acting funny. The radio turned off and then my automatic window wouldn't roll up. As I pulled into the parking space, the car turned off and wouldn't start again. I realized pretty fast that this was a battery or alternator problem, but I didn't really want to deal with it right as we arrived. So, I decided to pray about it and deal with it whenever we were ready to head home (all the while hoping it would just miraculously start when we got back).

We ended up spending about 5 hours on the beach, having A BLAST!! I LOVE the ocean, so I spent most of the day in the water with the kids. The waves were insane and we all laughed about getting beat up by the ocean. We laughed so hard, all day!!

When we weren't in the water (which was only about an hour or so), this is what the kids were doing:

Yup, they dug a giant hole. They had SO much fun doing it, and I just laughed at them. No, not with them, AT them. They spent an hour digging a hole! :)

(Incidentally, my camera recently broke, so my pictures may be a bit funny. It still takes pictures, but the screen is broken, so I have no idea exactly what I am taking a picture of. I just kinda guess, haha)

After the hole digging we spent some more time in the water (between the giant waves and really strong undertow, we got a work out!) before packing up our things and starting to head home.

That's when the real fun began.

My car would not start when we got back so we decided to try and find someone to give my car a jump. Apparently no one in Ocean City has jumper cables (yes, I know I should have them. I will soon...). Thankfully, one of the AIM girls has a AAA membership, so we called them. After about an hour they arrived to jump start my car.

I was nervous at this point that the problem was not my battery, but my alternator instead. The issues I had with the radio and window pointed to alternator to me, but the AAA guy said it was the battery. He also said I would need a new one immediately, so once he got my car started we drove straight to Pep Boys (about 10 minutes away) to get that replaced.

Unfortunately, my car didn't make it that far. Thankfully, it waited until we got off the interstate before it died again. So, I called AAA again and the lady that I talked to agreed that it sounded like an alternator problem. She called me a tow truck and we sat and waited again.

During this time, the AIM girls had gone to grab some dinner. Unfortunately, on their way back to rescue me, they accidentally made an illegal U-turn and were pulled over by the police...and given a ticket. At this point we had been dealing with my car for about 2.5 hours, so the ticket wasn't an exciting addition to our evening.

Finally, the tow truck arrived and took my car to Pep Boys.

(poor car!)

Since it was so late (close to 8 p.m. at this point), there wasn't anything they could do until tomorrow. They will call me and let me know what the problem is (although we all agree it appears to be the alternator...about a $300-$400 repair) and then fix it. Of course, then I will have to drive back to New Jersey to pick it up. Oh, and did I mention that I'm leading an AIM trip this week AND helping run a VBS at Cornerstone...while still leading Reading Rocks, Kids Club, etc. Oh, and my head boss at AIM (like second in command to the CEO) will also be here this week. I should have plenty of free time to take 4 hours out of my day to get my car, no problem!

Anyway, thankfully the AIM girls had driven a 12 passenger van so we all just piled in with them and headed home. My house was the last stop and after we unloaded everything I was heading back out to the van to take the AIM staff home (I am using the AIM van temporarily since I have to make airport runs tomorrow), I realized that the ONLY key to that van had fallen off the key chain and was no longer there. By this time it was about 10 p.m. and we were exhausted...and looking all over the street in the dark for the van key.

It took us about 20 minutes to find it, but we did find it!! I immediately took the staff to their house so they can rest (our teams arrive tomorrow!) and then went home to get everything ready for tmw.

There were so many insane moments today. I don't have $400 to fix my car, and I kinda freaked out about it. I thought my car was going to die in the middle of the interstate, and that wasn't really fun. I felt so guilty making the kids just sit and wait, over and over again, as we dealt with all of these issues. I was close to frantic when we couldn't find the van key, wondering how much it was going to cost to have a new one made (incidentally, I am getting copies made tomorrow!). I was exhausted, overwhelmed, confused and frustrated and many points during the day.

Still, as I write all of that, its not what I remember most about the day. What I remember most is me, Cupcake, Linda, Bonita and Rocky holding hands and laughing as we were all being dragged away by the waves. I remember laughing uncontrollably as the kids buried themselves in their hole only to realize they couldn't get out. I remember not one complaint coming out of their mouths as we sat in parking lots for hours waiting for jumper cables and tow trucks. I remember laughing as Linda explained what she thought tentacles were (she was way off base with that, haha). I remember driving home, after dropping everyone off and thinking, "Lord, how is it possible for you to be THIS good??"

As I think about today, I can't help but think that I am so undeservedly, undeniably, inexplicably, blessed.