It’s been a night and a day and another night. You tend to count those things when you are trying them on for size again after two years. We are both sucking in the oxygen of freedom like we can’t get enough. We have had two meals at the table without the stress of leaping up to do some kind of damage control. Of racing to the kitchen before she got out there first to try to clean up. Before perfectly good leftovers went down the garbage disposal. Or dirty dishes went back in the cupboard.

The carehome called yesterday and said her Mom tried to leave and was very restless. She insisted she wasn’t going to stay, but we knew that was coming. After church Elaine went and calmed her down. Her presence was reassuring. She told Elaine, “Well, I guess I will come back tomorrow and help them out because it’s obvious they need it.” I guess she thinks she is at work. Funny what the mind concocts when it has to.

We are enjoying putting the house to rights again. After an hour of intense scrubbing, Elaine has her bathroom back. She was cleaning it all along, otherwise the hard water stains would have done permanent damage. She says it feels like a luxury to have her own bathroom back. And yet the guilt still nips at her heart, even though she knows her Mom is in the best place she could possibly be now. And today, as she turned the corner to come home, she realized it was the first time she looked forward to coming home. And she feels guilt over that too.

I am waltzing around the house like Cinderella entertaining thoughts of the ball, classical music blaring from both radios. I will enjoy cleaning today. Soon, Elaine will be able to move out of the noise of the patio room and back into her room and enjoy a good night’s sleep again. Her first in two years.

And this morning, I am putting into practice what I have learned from my own dear Mom. A lesson she lives every day.

To count the joys and rest in God whether you are in the midst of trouble, or between troubles.

Because they will come, Jesus promised that. The world is full of them, but Jesus conquered that world of trouble when He rose from the grave and turned it right side up again. And while trouble follows me like cloud this morning, as it follows us all, I will be okay…….and so will you.

Because He says so, and we have a very big God.