Last Monday the four trucks from the Operation Christmas Child 2015 packing party were pulled and on their way. I thought I'd get caught up this week. That was an unrealistic thought.
I enjoyed Monday--basking in the joy of God's goodness in bringing us through last weekend.
Then on Tuesday that bubble burst as I got reports that some of my team members were offended, hurt, frustrated...from conflicting directions and changing decisions at the packing party. I've thought about this a lot over the past six days and I realize we need to work on getting a better 'chain of command' so to speak. We need to delineate who is in charge of which areas and know who will be the decision-maker and defer to that person. I'm learning it's about more than just getting the job done.
And I'm learning I'll probably never catch up.
On Thursday I opened the messy storage container, looked around, and closed it up again. Truth is, I don't know where to begin.
On Friday, to make matters worse, I got an e-mail from the vendor who sold me the nice baseball hats we used in 10,000+ of our boxes this year. He has another deal for me, and I can't pass it up. So, of course I said, "Yes" (not to 'the dress' but to 'the hats') and will need to find space in that container for 12,000+ more of those blessings.
The week brought some other sorrows in family life that are not blog material--at least not now--and as I think and pray about all the week's events I am reminded of Jesus' promise (not one of the more comforting ones, but still a promise) in John 16:33 "In this world you will have trouble." Thankfully, He doesn't end there and continues, "But take heart! I have overcome the world."
Today I was blessed to be the guest of Rose Dobson and pack boxes with her and her pastor and his family. Rose is one of our team members--a remarkable woman who defies illness and continues to pack 2,000 boxes or so out of her own home. Just being there made me smile.
That packing session at Rose's house got me inspired again. I decided the best way to clean up my house and my storage container might be to start packing boxes with the items in my attic that were too large to pack in the boxes at the packing party and also to pack some of the larger hard-to-store leftover items from the storage container.
So...this evening I hauled down donated boxes that are a bit on the large side and filled them with sparkly boots and backpacks and big stuffed animals.
Since getting caught up is unrealistic I guess I'll just keep packing on.
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