"crunch... oops ..."

This week I was taken back to 10 years ago ... pregnant with our oldest son.  It was just weeks after 9/11 had occurred, reminding me of how precious life is ... & how minor inconveniences can be a reminder of the precious-ness.

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Flash back to today ... Nov. 28, 2011.

Mornings are "hairy" at our house... no one wants to get out of bed.  Then mom has to be the bad guy and turn on the lights... pull back the sheets.

Today was a "hairy" morning.  After riding herd & getting both boys fed, dressed & out to the car, my coffee pot beeped ... reminding me that I needed to grab my morning caffeine infusion.  I filled my travel mug & entered the garage, to the sight of boys climbing from front-to-back .... back-to-front ....

I was not happy OR amused.

I hollered for everyone to buckle themselves into a seat belt & began backing my land yacht out ... crunch... oops.

After 7.75 years of backing out of this garage, I had hit the mirror ...

The same accident I had orchestrated ten years ago when pregnant with our oldest... had been repeated.

10 years ago I enlisted my colleague Wiley to help me call salvage yards to find a Ford Taurus passenger side mirror. Trying to problem solve independently.

This time around I am grateful for retractable mirrors... it flipped backward and only "cracked" the mirror, popping it out of the brackets that hold it in place... dangling by the wiring. The blinker in the mirror & the motor to adjust it are unscathed.  I just had to pop it back into the brackets.  Now the tiny print at the bottom of the mirror stating that "object may not be as they appear" is accurate with the slight crack.

Luckily the land yacht has racked up nearly 140,000 miles, the mirror adding to it's character.

This had me evaluating ... in life, how often do we try to problem solve independently or patch it up?

We really ought to be taking our troubles, accidents, catastrophes and asking the Lord for his guidance... looking for his hand and purpose in our trials.

Now I have a motto, "The most important things in life, ARE NOT things." ... maybe this is Divine intervention.... the Lord intervening in my parenting... to get my boys to follow through when I say, "get in, buckle up, be quiet."  At least it has worked for a few mornings.