In my defense, I was distracted, and I’ve only been to the post office a handful of times in the last couple of years.

So I pulled in the parking spot – it was after hours, there were only a few people there – and got out of the car. Turned to the right, walked down the sidewalk, tried the door. It was locked.

Well. It was after hours. But there was a thought in the back of my head that faintly remembered using those doors in the evening.

No matter – I walked back down the sidewalk, past my car, up to the main doors and went in. Success. Got the mail and went back to the set of main doors. Walked past the entrance door, went out the exit door, and again, something niggled in my mind.

Out on the sidewalk as I approached my car, I saw someone go in the same set of doors I’d tried just a minute earlier – and I realized I had tried the exit door, but this lady was going in the entrance door. Whoops.

It’s not just me, though; I outed Vince on social media last week for doing something similar. He dropped the girls and I off at the quilt store, and when we were done we all headed to the thrift store, where he dropped us off again. But before leaving to do his errands, he dropped off all our donations – plus the entire bag of new fabric and supplies we had just purchased.

(He went back and retrieved the items the next morning, and brought me an apple fritter to round out his apologies).

The next day I was cleaning the kitchen – nothing major, just the little, neglected areas I could see when I stopped long enough to notice them. Coffee spots on the wall behind the stove, the dirty kitchen window, and the grubby smudges on the refrigerator door where dirty hands helped themselves to what was inside.

The microwave vents were furry with grime so I pulled them off the microwave and set a pot of water on the stove to boil. Now this, friends, is a trick I know; I learned it when we were selling our old house. You bring the water to a boil, set the vent in the water, throw in a handful of baking soda, and open a window, because it will probably stink. The baking soda and water foam all the grime off the vent, and the result is magic.

By the time they were done, my black tank top was smeared with baking soda and kitchen grime and I went upstairs to change. The sun streamed in our bedroom, throwing light and color through the glass doorknobs on the closet.

I opened the door to grab a new shirt – but then closed it and looked at the light again. Moved the door back and forth, watching the color play through the glass. I had almost ignored it in my rush and distraction.

How often does He put light, color, and joy in our path, but we miss it? There are so many distractions and needs. How do we focus on what He wants us to see?

We’ve been trying to wean Kav, and even though this is our sixth rodeo and we should know what we’re doing by now, it feels harder than every other time.

We’re trying to prepare a kid to launch in a few years, and he wants almost nothing to do with moving forward.

We’re trying to release a book next month, but our distributor’s website has been glitchier than Biden’s earpiece, and it looks like we’ll have to delay the launch date.

And I don’t have any easy answers for any of those situations. I haven’t discovered any magical tricks to solve them.

(I do have an idea or two about Biden…but I digress.)

I tend to focus on the big thing ahead and forget to look at the small step right in front of me. I focus on checking the mail, and miss the correct door to getting in the post office.

In my attempts to wean little Kav, I’ve been trying to get a little space from him. But he cries. I try to get work done upstairs, and he cries. He tries to come upstairs when I’m writing, and Vin intercepts him, and he cries.

Let him come upstairs, the Lord says, so I do and he plays for a while and then wants to nurse, but I can redirect him to some toys.

I don’t have to wean him completely today. I just need to try to nurse him less right now, this afternoon.

At church, I’m sitting next to our boy who has taken more steps backward than forward lately. He is silent and I am singing. And my voice only carries only so far, but I am praying the words penetrate deep inside him. I don’t have to send a fifteen-year-old with special needs out into the world today; I just need to love him as he navigates the consequences of his choices today.

At home, on the phone, I am not able to get through to a real person to fix this website issue. So we call their parent company and find a real person, who listens and takes all my information and complaints and questions. And I don’t know if my voice will carry very far there, either – but it’s all I know to do right now.  

I’ve been distracted by the big need to wean the toddler, to launch the book and the young adult, and I’ve missed the small answers that are often right in front of me as I’m rushing along.

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 

– Philippians 3:12-14, ESV

I don’t have to fix everything, or clean everything, or know everything. (And friend, neither do you.) I just need to do the things I can see – and to do that in a wiser fashion, I need to slow down and ask God to give me vision to focus on the right things.

These small steps of obedience are like headlights on a dark road. We can trust that the small space of light we can see will be enough to get us where we need to go.

Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

– Philippians 3:15-16, ESV

How often does He have an answer for us but we are distracted with the speed of our own thoughts, going out of our way to miss the easier solution that He put right in front of us?

So many times, I have sat at this desk feeling like I don’t have enough in me for the next post, or the next chapter, or the next book. Some days it feels like we don’t have enough for the next day. We have just enough for this moment. We don’t have meals, we just have little ingredients, like manna. But then we gather our manna in all of those moments, and eventually it starts to sort itself out into something of real substance.

And this is the exciting part, because I know He’s done this before. I have seen the fishes and loaves multiplied; I’ve watched the water turn into wine.

I’ve seen the prodigal son return.

I know the miracles God wrings from a headlight that reaches just far enough ahead, and inadequate little words on paper, and the voice that carries just a little way, when maybe no one else can hear it.

Because God hears it. And He knows how to multiply our efforts.

Back downstairs, I wiped down the glass pasta jars and Kav was right there at my pantleg, reaching up and asking for a noodle. I pulled a skinny, delicate piece of angel hair out and gave it to him, and as he took it, it immediately broke.

But he didn’t cry. He might’ve, if he’d been focusing on things the way I have been lately. But he didn’t.

Instead, he held up both pieces.

“Two!” he yelled, in triumph.

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