Little Irritations

Do you ever feel that the circumstances of your life interfere with your plans? Do you believe that God has your life under His control? That would include circumstances. He may use circumstances we don’t like; those that are hard, painful, or even traumatic. Other times, they may just seem like small annoyances. But do you believe that God authors even these? Even the little irritations?

Yesterday I had a number of things I needed to work on. Regrouping for homeschool, adjusting the overall “life schedule,” editing articles for the newsletter, laundry, dishes, meal plans, along with myriad other little things.

I reached an impasse with the newsletter because I don’t know what software will be used. Without the framework I have no idea if I have enough articles, if they’re too long or too short, how much filler and photos I need, etc. I tried and tried to get the answer to this question. But the people who might know have been entirely unavailable.

Then it occurred to me that maybe God didn’t want me working on the newsletter at that moment. Maybe my focus needed to be homeschool and our schedule. Yes, the newsletter has deadlines. Such deadlines often cause me to get priorities out of sorts. Sometimes I work too much on one thing to the detriment of something more important. Like homeschool. It is my number one ministry in life right now. But it’s been relegated to the very flexible back burner recently. So I think that God was gently redirecting my path. In fact, if I remember correctly, He does say something like, “in all your ways, acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths.” Proverbs 3:6. My favorite redirection yesterday? He caused my computer to go to sleep right in the middle of responding to an email! Very funny!

So I put aside the newsletter and went to work on the life and homeschool schedule. I decided I should pay attention and not to wait for Him to have to crash my computer. He uses whatever means are necessary. For me, it was those little irritations that moved me onto the correct path.