I have an interesting relationship with the books in my home. Sometimes, I purchase or am given a book and read it right away. Other times, though, a book I really want to read will seem impossible to get to for a time—sometimes years! Yet, suddenly I’ll be drawn to it and know it’s time to read it now. It never fails the book has some message for me that would have been less meaningful at any other time. I can’t prove this, but I’m pretty convinced it’s a God thing—and I love it!

This was the case with Sing Down the Moon by Scott O'Dell. The main character in the book is a young Indian girl. Chapter 13 describes her womanhood ceremony. She dresses up in her best clothes and wears borrowed jewelry. Then family and friends come to visit. You would think it was party time, but not for the girl-turning-woman. Her mother puts her to work grinding corn for the guests who must be fed. Soon after she starts working, another relative comes to her and gives her another task to do. She drops what she’s doing, takes care of the task, and goes back to grinding corn. Another relative tells her milk is needed. She drops what she’s doing, goes to the creek to milk the goat, then returns to grinding corn. This goes on all day!

Does she eventually go ballistic and tell everyone to go away and let her finish grinding the corn already?! No. She learns that providing what’s needed, making others comfortable, helping as she can when she can is her honored role within her tribe.

Our family has moved four times in the past four years. Before we jumped on this roller coaster, throughout the time we lived in the Netherlands, I had a very stable routine. I liked it. Routine is predictable. Predictability is comfortable. Yet, circumstances in our family’s life have practically removed those words from my vocabulary—and I’m learning to love that, too, or at least to accept it graciously (most of the time, occasionally, more and more often, I hope) as the way God wants me to live right now. I understand the Indian girl. Her tribe’s ceremony was wise! And our wise God has been putting me through it for the past four years.

So when I get up in the morning and go over my schedule for the day, I understand that it’s not set in stone. As I begin to clean the kitchen, my youngest son needs help with a school project. The kitchen can wait. When I start to dust, Hubby calls to see if I can find a piece of information he needs. The dust won’t go away while I track this down. (Oh, but if only it would!) If I finish my usual tasks and sit down to work on a scrapbook or writing project, the college kid calls to shoot the breeze. There will be other times for projects—my son’s on the line today! Hooray!

I can’t schedule people like I schedule tasks, but people are what life’s all about—and people interrupt schedules. One of our denomination’s general superintendents’ wives called these interruptions, Divine Appointments, when she coached a group of pastor’s wives. I liked that term when I first heard it; now I’m learning to embrace it!

So when I get up in the morning and go over my schedule for the day, I understand that there may be more events on it than I can foresee, and I plan to let God schedule these. Like the Indian girl, providing what’s needed, making others comfortable, helping as I can when I can is my honored role within the tribe. The corn will get ground in its time.