Ever have one of those days when you think you just can't take it anymore? "It" can mean an
infinite definition of things. This "it" may not bother this person, but that "it" could drive me
crazy - and believe me, that's a short trip. I happened to be having one of those "it" days on a
Thursday morning. Guess who was involved, my five year old son, Sam - aka "It."
One of my favorite things to do is to go to garage sales and hunt for treasures. I really enjoy
getting all gussied up and telling my husband, "This dress only cost me twenty five cents!" In a
day in age when everybody wants a piece of my pie, finding a dress for twenty five cents feels
like getting the last, best, biggest and of course most calorie free bite.
Now taking Sam garage saleing is like shoveling the driveway in a minus fifty seven windchill,
after a twelve inch snowfall and with a broken shovel after recovering from knee surgery. Did I
also mention it's dark out? As I buckle him in his seat belt to go, I know the chore will feel much
the same. Mom starts to sound like a broken record towards the son, who suddenly becomes the
ignorer of all words. Words commonly ignored are, "Put that down. I said, put that DOWN!
PUT THAT DOWN! Come here, over here, by ME! Don't whine, don't touch that, leave that
alone, leave ME alone, no-we can't go home yet, you can't have that, leave the lady's cat alone, get out of
the car, get in the car, don't talk so much, where did you put your money?" and my favorite, "Do I
need to call your dad?" I had run through the drill quite extensively by this point and my nerves
were dancing on their toes and about ready to pirouette me into the swan lake. I was beginning to
think, "I can't take it anymore."
We, meaning Sam and my mom, had just left a very good sale where I had happily dumped a
whole dollar and sixty cents while shopping with the right eye and admonishing Sam with the left eye.
It's a good look for me - kind of like gas. I was boisterously carrying my armful of
goodies and wasn't done gloating over them in the car when I put the key into the ignition to
promptly pull away on to find another hopefully just as good sale and also trying to figure out
which scoldings were left in my quickly tiring mental word search. I tried to turn the key, but the
ignition was stuck. Well, I was on an incline, so I tried jiggling the steering wheel in hopes that
it would lock and then the ignition would turn. To no avail I sat, with mom enthusiastically
cheering me on, turning and re-turning, huffing and key jiggling until finally I became truly
frustrated and was about to call the knight in shining armor, my husband.
I was totally at the end of my wits now. This had never happened to me before and I just
couldn't imagine what was wrong. Was this going to be expensive to fix? Afterall, I had just
paid a dollar sixty for about five items, and I wasn't prepared to lose my profit to an expensive
ignition overhaul. My mom wittingly spied two men at the sale which appeared to know
something about cars, after all, they had car keys. She rushedly went to ask for their all knowing
expertise while I sat in the car with Sam and listened to his unasked advice, a quite common trait
of his all knowing five years. He said, "Mama, I know what to do - PANIC!" For once, he had a
brilliant plan. I was about ready to take that advice, when I saw mom and the two men
approaching. I jumped out of the driver's seat and started to relenquish the keys from my hand to
one of the men. As I did, I remembered that my husband's key to his truck looked just like my key
to this car. I looked alot closer and realized that I had been using the truck key instead of my key.
In embarrassment of the now solved mystery to myself, I handed the keys to the man behind the
wheel. I said, "Here, try THIS key." He jubilantly grabbed the key realizing what I had been
doing, of which I painfully hoped he hadn't, stuck it in and turned the car right on. As he slipped
out of the driver's seat he said with a wry grin, "I hope your day goes better." I wanted to melt from embarrassment, but I couldn't help laughing until my stomach hurt. Don't you just love
looking like an idiot?
This reminds me of I Corinthians 10:13. There hath no temptation taken you but such as is
common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye
are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to
bear it. I was about at the breaking point with my son, to lose my temper and possibly give him
a karate chop across the hinder, scream, or just plain leave him on the next street corner and
speed away. But fortunately, as embarrassing as the situtation was, there was an escape from the
exasperation with him to the shift of emotions with me. I was still in the car garage saleing with
busy body Sam, but I had been a goofball too, and we eventually made it home without him
standing on a corner bawling somewhere.
I tell Sam, "I love you dearly, but I do not always love your actions." How the Lord must think
that of all of us. Isn't it wonderful to know, that if we have faith in the words of I Corinthians
10:13, that every situation of temptation we're in, we can find relief, and bear it by His grace -
every time. The provision has been made for us if we believe, not in our own selves, but through
Him. Praise the Lord, He even cares about frazzled mommy nerves.
Carol E. Bratland 
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