More work than when I'm at work...

If there is one aspect of my new duty station that I, for lack of a better word; despise, it would be the way in which I find myself thinking about tomorrow, or maybe the day after that or three days from then. It is not a bad thing to look at the up coming week and compare it with your schedule but the days should not be passing by this quickly and I should not already be looking at the days I have off next week wondering what I can get accomplished, what appointments we've scheduled and whether I will be able to do any of the things I want to do. The Bible tells us in Mathew 6 to not worry about the next day for it will have enough troubles of its own. I know this and I'm not worried as much as I am hopeful for some days and less than excited about the chores or tasks at hand that will no doubt take up most, if not all, of my time spent at home with my family. 
Today was payday and a day on the down. We left the house around 10 am and returned late in the afternoon. I am very VERY thankful for how well behaved my children are. I don't always notice this so Dianna has to remind me; once in a while. Yesterday was a day out as well and although I needed to head over to the church to cut the grass and clean the grounds up a bit, I said, "To heck with all that, I need to make up lost time after two back-to-back days of duty". I was naive to think that I could divide my day today and get over to the church this afternoon to complete the necessary work so that everything looked well presented for church on Sunday. Oh, before I forget, I signed up for the fall semester of softball and was misinformed about when first practice would be held. Thinking it was tonight and finding out too late that it was last night kind of put a cramp on my mood. I love playing softball and I was looking forward to our first scrimmage for about a month. Unfortunately, I won't make it to our first game because I have to work that day. So back to the church. I got over there and hustled about, got some work done and then rushed home so that Dianna could make it back to church in time for singing practice. I got home and I could tell that the kids weren't listening to Dianna and she was getting upset about them playing around when they should have been eating their dinner. I came in the door and piped right in. I hate being upset at them and getting angry with them when they don't listen. Tonight was a bad combination of things like my daughter not wanted to finish her dinner or my son who was preoccupied with his new puzzle rather than finishing his food and then you had the youngest one who just wanted to gargle his water and spit it out on the table. Boy, did I get upset. Don't tell Dianna this but I ended up grabbing my daughter's plate, clearing the contents in the garbage and then snapping the plate in half because I was so upset at her for wasting her dinner. It was a plastic plate and I was the one who wasted the food by throwing it in the garbage. I won't hit my kids out of anger. Discipline is another issue. So I took it out on the plastic plate, took a few breaths, told her to go play and sat down to eat my meal. 
Was the dinner issue really the problem? Probably not. Dianna and I found out that the state of Virginia requires more documentation as to why we want to home school our family, based on a religious exemption law, and that was frustrating to Dianna because her and I figured we had sent them so much already. I told her it's just a speed bump and I believe that too. 
Another factor that added more wood to the fire around the dinner issue was knowing that my time off was gone and ahead of me was a weekend spent at work which, in and of itself, makes for a long weekend. 
Dianna and I took a huge leap of faith this morning when we decided to use most of our savings to pay off the credit card. Tomorrow we are going to cancel the card. I believe, and I told Dianna this, that the debt we owed on the credit card along with having on in the first place, was holding our faith back from believing that God will provide every bit of funding we need from here to eternity. From reading a couple of Dave Ramsey's books, we have learned that as long as we are in debt, we won't save any money. It just seemed to me that the debt on the card was or is holding us back from making real progress in not only our walk of Faith but also real progress in raising funds. We serve a Psalm chapter 50 God and his promises are Yes and Amen. It's time we started experiencing that on a very personal and real level. So I guess you could say that today's lesson, at least for me, was about focusing on what matters to me and realizing my fits of outrage are only going to get me nowhere, while focusing on God's provision puts me in a place of humility when I realize that my goals do not always line up with His Will. 

Thank you for your continued support and prayers. May God Bless each of you and may you see His Favor on your lives every day.

Jordan.
"Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God."
 Psalm 20:7