The Miracle of The Blue Shirt

Yesterday was a horrible day.  Nothing awful, just a no-good-very-bad-mom’s-so-darn-tired-of-kids kind of a day.  I had 2 sick calls from teachers, one of whom thought I could magically take her class even though I was already teaching sharing time.  I was just on the edge.  Drew’s getting busy and it’s me all week, P has been sick and just wants to burrow her head into my rib cage.

Then, a good, good sister came up to remind me that the boys need a colored shirt for the Gilbert Temple celebration.  Now, WHY ON EARTH do they want the boys to have a COLORED shirt, as all I am ALLOWED to buy them is WHITE shirts.  We have plenty of those.  I know this, because they are balled up in the bottom of the closet.  Sure, let’s send out all the boys parents to buy colored shirts, that seems like a good idea… but I digress.

Anyway, the day sort of piled on.  Primary, luckily, was pretty great and I may have felt an ounce of the spirit.  Then came choir in which people want choir moved to a time that just doesn’t work for our family (Drew is the choir director for oh, the 95th year).  I’m on the edge of a cold and all the talking I did during sharing/singing time plus choir made me extra tired.  Then, someone was angry with the room we were in and I could tell that Drew was on edge from all that and that made me MORE on edge.

I found myself wondering the easiest way to get out of this church.  I was tired of it, and ready to get OUT. {I should say I love the gospel of Jesus Christ, but sometimes this church gets tiring — that’s all, and everyone has times they’re done with a strictly volunteer organization, don’t you?}.

Enter coming home, trying to rush through dinner so I could head back for another thing for ward council. Oh the joy.

I begged Conner to check his closet, I swore I remember buying a blue shirt.  He told me there was NO way he had a blue shirt in there and to stop asking him, but I asked him if he’d like to eat, and he said yes, and I said “then you’d better go take a good look.”

And there it was, the blue shirt.

After looking at it I remember shopping at Goodwill, looking for Sunday items for him, and this blue shirt just screamed “BUY ME!!!”, I wasn’t sure why.  We pretty much buy white shirts, but it looked decent, and he could maybe wear it to another event, so I threw it in the cart.

And now I knew why.

This week, just one more trip to the store might have thrown me over the edge, and God knew that.  He knew that buying a shirt beforehand could save my soul this week.  And I felt God’s love and that he was always watching out for me and mindful of my little life.  He cares that I am looking to do good about 80% of the time, and He appreciates that.

Have you looked for God’s love in your life today?  How did it feel?  Did you brush it off, or did you remind yourself that you were lovable and you put a lot of good in to the world?  Because God will give you a blue shirt, when you need one. 🙂