The Tale of Three Trees

I have been struggling all year with what to do with myself.  It turned out this year that my job as stay-at-home mom was on hiatus from 9-4, Monday-Friday, September-May.  It also turns out I don’t really like free time.  I prefer to be busier than I can handle.   Free time allows for thinking.  Thinking triggers my perfectionism.  Perfectionism makes me crazy and overwhelms me so I can get nothing done.  Having me crazy and overwhelmed makes my family crabby.  But then I can see the value in being here for my family.  I can see how being here does make our crazy out of school lives work (see post on proud mama).  So, I prayed about all of this hoping to get an answer like buy a lottery ticket so you can win, start a charity to help people from 9-4, Monday-Friday, September-May, hire a staff to take care of the house in your absence, and never have to worry about anything again.  Instead, my answer seems to be more like you are right where you are suppose to be, have patience and wait.  Humph.

I am not saying God is wrong here, but can’t He see how crazy I am just sitting here waiting?  This is not what I want.  I want something different, something less maid and more glamorous.  I have gifts that seem to be wasted on three little people who could care less.  And when I pray this to God, he repeats with patience something like I know the plans for you…plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.(Jeremiah 29:11), so please trust me.  Double Humph.

Then the other night I picked up “The Tale of Three Trees.  A Traditional Folktale” by Angela Elwell Hunt.  It is the story of three trees that grow up on a mountaintop with big dreams.  In the end, the dreams of the trees are reached, but not in the way they were planning.  I often read this to my children when I think they are struggling with something and need to realize that things will turn out ok even if the path they take is different than they thought they wanted.

As I am reading this book the other night, I am thinking it will be good for my kids to hear this message as they are each struggling with something things as of late.  And as I got to the part at the end where the author brings the whole story home into the moral, I think one of those little light bulbs appeared over my head.  I realized that this story isn’t just for my kids.  This story speaks to me too.  For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord.  So I guess I will keep being a Mama to my three instead of becoming a princess or something else just as glamorous.  I am right where I belong even if the journey doesn’t look like the one I envisioned for myself.   And when I doubt that, I always have “The Tale of Three Trees.”