Call It Wisdom

I've never before been in a place in my life where I sat back and said, "No, I don't need to add that into my life, I just don't have the time to deal with it. I also know that if I was to add it into the mixture, the batter would be very lumpy, the pancakes would burn, and I would be late for that big meeting." I've always grabbed life by the horns and ran. Been involved in plays, team sports, clubs, choirs, church activities, leading Bible studies, volunteering to make food, the list goes on. 
And now here I am again. My husband died, leaving me in the worst and most demanding 2 weeks of my life planning and signing a million different things while facing the biggest black hole emotionally that I could have imagined. My children are at the most demanding stages of their lives at 3 and 1 year. I was forced to move across the globe with only the bags I could literally carry on and off of planes and through terminals, had to psychologically hand the reins of my life to someone else and was no longer in charge of my own belongings or household. Waited on the Army to send me all these things, and in the meantime decided it was a good idea to buy a house, make plans, volunteer at my church, and get a freaking dog. When you say it that way, it sounds all at once insane and necessary. 
1. Buy a house - well, I needed somewhere to put the stuff when it got here, and the idea of leaving it in storage irked me to no end. I didn't want the headache of moving it twice or living somewhere that I wasn't happy and knew i would be only for a short time, so renting was out of the question. And technically I couldn't have gotten into a house any sooner than what I did and it was advantageous for the belongings that would arrive 2 weeks later. 
2. If I didn't make plans, I would feel an even greater sense of loss - loss of control even of the little things that get me through the weeks and months. Planning trips and thinking ahead are what keep me sane. 
3. Spiritually and, frankly, mentally, doing something at church keeps me grounded, gives me someone to think about other than myself, and helps me feel like I'm serving a purpose and not just being served all the time, which I do feel like happens a lot lately. 
4. Dog. That one...well, that was purely selfish and stupid. I saw a cute dog, I rebelled against the rules I'd been under for 5 years, and I threw a yapping, biting, clawing, peeing, pooping tornado into my life. Stupid. But I suppose she serves a function. She gives me a furry friend to sleep with and maybe, just maybe that staves off the loneliness I might otherwise feel when I go to bed at night, or when I'm sitting around the house when the kids are asleep. 
So, looking back at these decisions, there are a few I might do a bit differently. But overall I think I did the best I could to grab onto some normalcy while spinning around on the merry-go-round I've been on for the last few months. And here's where the title of this blog comes into play. I can look back and see the positive and negative decisions, the times when I had so much going on that I could have limited with better decision-making, and I can decide not to add some little things on my plate when the options are in front of me. This weekend I've decided not to bake a cake for my daughter's birthday, but to buy one. I love to cook, I would love to experiment and bake something uber delicious and bad for everyone, but right at this moment, that's not something I should add in. I've been really overwhelmed this week mentally and I'm ready for some peace. Stress is sometimes involuntary, as I've seen recently, but it can sometimes be a consequence of our inability to say "no". I'm ready to lower my voluntary stress level a bit by planning my days better, following through with the hard tasks and not adding in new ones, and putting Bible study first on the list of things to do in my free time so I get more time in the Word and less time to cruise facebook or watch a flick on netflix. God knows what I need more in my life.