speaking of coping. . .

I know I still need to do a last day of school post - it will come - today I wanted to just post a ray of Colorado sunshine.  Yesterday was just one.of.those.days.  All day long.  I am so greatful for new mercies every morning.  Deployments are strange beasts. . . I find that I can be sailing along somewhat smoothly and then BAM something seemingly insignificant and fairly mundane/silly and by all accounts fairly unimportant can go slightly awry and it's the hair that breaks the camel's back.  Yesterday it was going to have a TB test only to find out that the fridge malfunctioned and the clinic had NO MORE VACCINE.  Really?  Of course they didn't.  And then I realized that I had lost the USPS insurance receipt for the computer that I mailed Philip in Afghanistan (the brand new one he took with him crashed after 3 weeks. . . good times - talk about another day of something derailing me and yielding stress tears. . .).  Our consciousness is a peculiar thing. . . it knows that sometimes it feels safer to focus on details about electronics or a routine medical procedure because actually that's much less overwhelming than thinking about the Taliban shooting at your husband.  But in the moment, at the breaking point, the little things push you over the edge.  Even if they matter very little, in the moment it's kind of overwhelming.

But that is when you reach out to the people who love you and are a safe place to land, request extra prayer (lots and lots of it) and let yourself fall apart a little (or a lot. . . my poor mother-in-law - the tears and snotty noses she endured yesterday. . .).  And then God demonstrates his faithfulness and grace in the little things in pretty huge ways (like waking up to an email from half way around the world letting me know the computer arrived on a chopper last night).

And then you have chocolate froyo for lunch.  Because sometimes, that's the healthiest thing a girl can do for herself.