My Plans, Interrupted

It is not coincidence that I just wrote about 'making plans' versus what God has ordained for our lives. Today I was given a real life application.

My agenda book has blue ink designating what was supposed to happen today. After dropping the children at school, I was to join 30 other women for the kick off of our Fall Bible Study of Esther: Its Tough Being a Woman. I was supposed to be there as one of the small group leaders.

After that, I was supposed to host three fellow Young Life committee members at my house to work on our rapidly approaching fundraising dinner with Allen Levi. 

Tonight I was supposed to be at our church's Fall kickoff of couples small groups and children's choir.  (I had even remembered to make reservations for Wednesday Night Supper!)

Instead a 102 temperature on P around midnight significantly altered my plans for the day.

That's OK, I told myself this morning. The world will spin on without me. I'll send a few e-mails and relish my time with my boy. I am, after all, a stay at home Mom for a reason. This is my priority.

P and I enjoyed a low key day while K & R were off at school. He was feeling fine and his fever had passed. I planned for us to come home and play in the yard and paint on the porch. 

We had just changed into scrubby clothes and were finishing up our snack when our home alarm system started going off. That's strange, I thought. I didn't even have it set. I looked at the keypad and noticed that it said, "Smoke Alarm Upstairs." Uh-oh. 

Ironically, the children and I had just talked about what to do in a fire during breakfast this morning. As I remembered that, it made me a little worried that this might be legitimate. Eeek! I instructed the children to stay put by the back door downstairs while I went up to check it out. I looked around at the smoke and heat detectors and did not notice anything suspicious. As I walked back downstairs I heard the alarm go off again. The keypad had the same message "Smoke Alarm Upstairs." I was now officially concerned.

I heard my cell phone beep and realized I had a new voicemail. It was the security monitoring company. As I called them back I got a text from my husband that said, "Someone called my office and said our house was on fire. What is going on?"

The woman from the monitoring center informed me that the fire department had been dispatched. I evacuated the kids to the driveway, scanned the roof line for any sign of smoke and greeted the 'weal fi-ya-men' that were now walking up my driveway. After issuing strict instruction to my brood to NOT MOVE from under that tree, I escorted the fire fighters into the house to point out the location of the monitors. When I got back down to the children they were exactly where I left them, discussing their evacuation plans if they saw flames. 

The fire fighters did a thorough search of our home and established that it was a false alarm. As they were leaving, I asked them if we could at least have a picture to document our unexpected afternoon adventures. They kindly obliged.

It wasn't until this point that I noticed what P was wearing...a life preserver.

I asked him why he put it on and he replied, "to keep the fire from burning my skin."
His brother, whom I rarely quote because he doesn't say childish things... looked at P, then rubbed his arms. In his deep, raspy voice with a 55 year old man's flat tone he said, "Umm, P, I don't think this would have helped."

Undaunted, P decided to keep wearing it the remainder of the afternoon...just in case.

I >LOVE< 5 year olds!