Inconvenient

    Inconvenient to me often translates to "not fair".  Much of life often fits into this category.  Kids say it all the time to their friends, to their parents, and to anyone who doesn't do what they like.  Do we really lose that as we become adults or do we just call it something else?

    When I first saw the prompt of inconvenience, I had one thing come to mind.  As I read Ellen's post, I had a second thing come to mind.  Here are my two moments of "that's not fair".

    My first thought was of my new found life as a single mom sharing parenting with a husband who deeply hurt me with his choices and changed what our family had been. While I am glad that he wants to help raise his boys and I want them to keep a relationship with him, it is DEFINITELY inconvenient.  Not fair to my boys to have their world rocked when they are just starting into the end years of childhood and on the edge of teen hood.  Not fair to me having to do each day on my own and having all battles with no voice there to take over when mine is no longer being heard.  Not fair that when they are with their dad it seems so short to them.  Not fair that he often isn't able to be at their events.  All of it "just not fair".

    My second thought of "not fair" is the life of my second son.  His pregnancy was not something we thought would happen, then came at a time of incredible inconvenience.  We had just moved two states away with an 18 month old. Living with my mom and stepdad.  Trying to find jobs and find a place to live.  Hardly spending time in a way to even figure out how I could be pregnant.  Not the best time.  Then he is born and all is more settled and seems to be o.k.  Six month check up and the doctor says he is concerned and wants us to go have an MRI.  Blindsided!  So we go and what he must have thought came to be (he was at the hospital on a day he would have been in the office).  Hydrocephalus.  I didn't even know this could happen to babies if they weren't shaken.  He needs to go have surgery and a shunt placed.  This goes smoothly but 2 years later the effects of having a small tube in your brain shows.  Behaviors, lack of speech, and tantrums like I had never seen (I worked in special ed. and had seen plenty).  "Not fair"!  I can't even like this child, yet I have been given him as a gift.  What had I done to deserve a gift like this?  He didn't bond well so it was hard to bond with him.  He is not the child I thought I would have.  He was to be easier because he was the second and we had practice.  Many days when it has been battle after battle, all I can say is "this is not fair".  Inconvenient!

    In it all, it is God's plan for my life, for my boys' life, for my husband's life.  We each are walking a road He planned and knows we think it unfair.  He says "just hang in there and see how this all unfolds.  I know how it will end."  So, in it all I just trust.  I keep walking His road each day and waiting to see how it all turns out.  ellenstumbo.com/life-inconvenient