Sunday, July 17, 2011

My Emergency Reactions

I live in a land where emergencies happen moment to moment.



The kids woke up too early and now everyone is cranky. Emergency.



Baby played in the toilet that wasn’t flushed. Emergency.



A ‘helper’ dusted valuable breakables onto the floor. Goodbye travel souvenirs. Emergency.



A mole dug up my freshly planted flower beds. Emergency.



Burned cornbread. Emergency.



These things are BIG in my life.
I want to pout and scream and call someone to get some sympathy. Isn’t that what we do in an emergency? My reaction is physical and I feel my chest tighten, breathing accelerates.


A few months ago I printed out a Parenting Manifesto from Ann Voscamp’s blog. I love every line written, but one stuck out to me:



Today, I will not have any emergencies. There are no emergencies. Only amateurs hurry.





But…. I want to argue (and maybe stomp my foot!), situations happen all day long that make me crazy! In my land, they are emergencies. This Manifesto implies I have a choice about how I react to them. Could great calamities be handled with grace?

We all know the craziness of my reaction isn’t productive.

Read the rest on Drops Of Living Water...




4 comments:

makeup artist sydney said...

Hey if you are going to declare emergency for every single reason then how will it work...

Aly sun said...

That is just it, everything isn't an emergency (even when it feels like it). The rest of the post is on Drops. I hope that makes more sense to see how I have relaxed and moved on.

Linds and Manda said...

I'm heading over to Drops to catch the rest but before I do let me tell you...I right there with your list of what I consider emergencies. Like today when I woke up to hearing Liam had just wet his bed. It's sleep in Thursday people! I just washed his sheets yesterday completely out of the blue! He's 5 1/2 years old! AHHHH. Okay, like I said, I'm heading over to Drops.

Olivia said...

Great post--read the rest on Drops. Thanks for getting the little line 'in light of eternity' stuck in my head! I need to remember that WAY more often than I do...