I'm reading a devotional book at the moment that looks at one characteristic a week.
Last week the focus was on joy. Monday's reading started off the week by talking about the source of our joy and how our joy is not contingent on our circumstances. Approximately 2-3 hours after reading about how we should rejoice always and give thanks in all circumstances, I was turning the flat upside down looking for my purse. There are only so many places a purse can be hidden (or so I thought) and I looked everywhere - on the top of the shoe cabinet, which functions as our entering/leaving the house dumping ground. In the shoe cabinet. Down the back of the shoe cabinet. On every surface in the house. Under every cushion in the house. I realised I hadn't seen my purse since the day before when I'd paid at a nearby cafe and L had emptied the rucksack that it had been in before he took the rucksack to school.
So I phoned L, no answer, tried to phone again, sent WhatsApp messages. I couldn't find it anywhere and my mind was already jumping to worse case scenarios. Had it fallen out of the rucksack or been stolen? If it had been stolen or fallen out, might it still be on the road somewhere? Inside my purse was not only cash and bank cards, but mine and the two boys' residence permits. If I thought we'd lost those, we'd have to go to the police station, then go to the migration office, would we be able to get new ones easily, how long would the process take...
I grabbed some of our emergency cash (because we needed bread for lunch and all my money was in my purse), and with the boys I retraced my route back to the cafe. No sign of it but I did manage to get hold of L, who thought he'd 'seen it around somewhere'. I got home slightly frazzled and short tempered while trying to remind myself that I was meant to be joyful no matter what the circumstances and after all my eternal future was secure.
But I still really did not want to have to deal with lost residence permits, never mind cancelling bank cards with the hassle of phoning my Turkish bank plus working out how to get replacement bank cards from the UK. I walked in the door and had a sudden thought. I went straight to J's sit on plastic car that has a lift up seat and small space to stash things under the seat, and there was my purse. J was obviously not as past the hiding-things-in-his-car stage as we thought he was. So that was me being joyful in all circumstances.
Roll on the following Monday (yesterday) and the focus this week is on peace. I read yesterday morning about how we should have peace in all circumstances because our peace has already been achieved for us and is not contingent on things that happen in our lives. So when things don't go our way, we do not need to be anxious but can bring our requests to our Father and his peace will guard our hearts and minds.
And so as the weather was miserable, I made plans to go over to a friend's house with the boys so J could play with (or at least alongside) some friends, packed my rucksack (with my purse in it) and spent 15 minutes getting the three of us ready to go out the door. I'd got J into wellies, coat and hat, S secured in the baby carrier, and I went to grab my keys from the top of the shoe cabinet (that entering/leaving the house dumping ground again. Everyone has one of those right?). J was literally walking out the door, I was about to. Except my keys weren't there. I looked on the shoe cabinet, in the shoe cabinet, down the back of the shoe cabinet, on every surface, under the cushions. I realised I hadn't seen them since the day before, when I'd put them in the rucksack. I thought 'I'm not making last week's mistake again' and looked inside J's car. No sign of any keys. I started phoning L again and sending him messages. I tried to stop J from pretending to be a dinosaur and stomping round the flat in his wellies while looking for my keys. I finally got hold of L, who confirmed that my keys were still in his rucksack, along with his keys.
I did not feel very peaceful. L wasn't going to be home until after J was meant to be in bed for his nap. After getting J ready to go out and getting him excited to go to a friend's house, I really did not want to announce that we weren't going out after all, take off J's wellies, coat and hat and spend the rest of the morning at home (with no bread for lunch). In the end, thankfully my friend was quite happy for us to come over for the entire morning and for J to have lunch there, I could pull the door shut and it would lock itself, and L just left his class slightly early to get home bang on J's usual nap time.
I haven't dared look what next week's focus is but I'm already dreading next Monday...
