If you know me, then you know that I am a slave to clock most of the time. I pride myself in making a schedule and sticking to it. After all, I pretty much would live in a world of chaos if I did not use time to my advantage every day. Finding the right parking space. Getting my favorite seat in a staff meeting. Making all the lights on the way to work. It all has to do with timing. I am pretty comfortable with the tick tock of the clock. But Sunday mornings trying to leave the house on time for church has proven to be quite a challenge. A challenge that has put me over the edge on a few occasions. See, there are a lot of moving parts to a Sunday morning in my house. First of all, it's a 13 hour shift for the CNA who works with us on a Sunday. I don't know about you, but on a 13 hour shift, one may think that it's ok if you are a minute or two late - or 10 or 20. You get the picture.
Inside the house, my Mom has to be willing to wake up an hour earlier than she usually does. And on Saturday nights, she almost always stays up extra late. So getting her to be awake on Sunday morning is a challenge.
But before any of this happens, I get up an hour and a half before the CNA arrives to do "first one in the store" grocery shopping. It takes me 1 hour to complete the task. I race back home and put the groceries away. Then I fill my Mom's med case for the week. In Florida, CNA's cannot help with administration of medication unless it is portioned and not in the medicine bottles. After that's done, I re-stock the Glucerna shakes and apple sauce that she uses each day to take her meds with. And by this time, there should be someone at the front door ready to work for the day. But on occasion, I will get a Sunday morning phone call about the time I finish putting groceries away. The person on the other end has overslept and will be about 30 minutes late. Ok, well, it usually takes about an hour and 15 minutes to get Mom up, showered and dressed for church. Then breakfast can be done in 15 minutes. So, we could be walking out the door by 9:45 and making the 45 minute drive to church and pull up by 10:30. But luckily, it's summertime and church doesn't start until 11.
So, with a 30 minute delay, we should still be "all good" for getting to church on time. So, with my 30 "extra" minutes, I shower and get dressed and then think that I can try to keep us ahead of the game. So. I will do the morning meds. I go in and greet my Mom with a soft "good morning ". And she tells me "good morning, honey". I ask her if she slept well and she says, "yes." Then I ask her if I can take her blood sugar and she replies "yes" once again. I think, "good, she's awake and pleasant. We are going to have a lovely day." I turn around to get her blood sugar kit and go back to her bedside only to find that she has drifted back off to sleep. Just that fast! Uh-oh! So, I gently wake her again and take her waking blood sugar reading. And head to the kitchen to mix up the morning meds. When I get back to her with the medications, she has once again nodded off. I call her softly to wake her, "Mommy". No response. "Mommy". No response. I lightly touch her arm and she jumps and looks at me like I am the devil there to take her down the flaming flagpole after putting her in gasoline underwear. I apologize for startling her and give her the medications. About this time I wonder, where is the CNA who said they would arrive in 30 minutes?
She gets to the house about an hour and a half later than the shift start time. But we still have a slight chance to get out of the house and on the road in order to be on time for church. But once out of the shower, I notice that they are not swift on this day about coming out of the bedroom ready to rock and roll. In fact, they don't come out until about the time we should be walking out of the door for church. I have taken a number of deep, cleansing breaths while I made coffee, sausage for me and scrapple for my Mom (we are from DC with southern roots but she loves this product from Pennsylvania -don't ask), and a cheddar cheese omelet. So, we get Mom set at the table, I giver her insulin and her plate and sit down to eat with her. She asks if we are still going to church or if we are going to stream online. That's what we do if church has already started before we are ready to leave the house. She had been in the house all week. So, it would be really good for her to get out. I tell her that we are going to go to church and we will get there when we get there. I decided on this Sunday that the clock would not stress me out anymore for the day. I refused to drive extra speedy to get us there sooner. I refused to feel any shame for walking into church late. Heck! there are lots of people who come from a lot closer who walk through the door after we do. I chose to get there when we get there.
We arrive at church. Park in a spot of our own making because the ADA spots are filled. And when we get in and situated, we found we had not missed anything that is important to my Mom in service. We had already paid our tithes. We got there before the word was given. So, we got a full church experience and a word for our lives. And I gained a new insight on patience and timeliness and living with less stress. Sometimes, you have to let go and let God show you a thing or two.
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