I Cheated... and I'm Glad!

Bright and early this morning, our home telephone rang. Pretty uncommon sound around here since most of our family members and close friends know calling the cell is the best way to talk to us. It's normal to hear a cell phone ring early, but the home phone ringing is rare. Not a good sign.

I grabbed the phone and glanced at the Caller-ID. It shows "Camp Charis"...heart starts beating hard...what's happened? Our dd is at Camp Charis and they NEVER call unless there is a problem! [In fact, that is my one and only problem with dd going there. Their rules keep us incommunicado for the whole week!] (Nice big word, huh Deb?)

I answer the phone, "Hello." The voice on the other end is NOT dd......heart beats much faster...what's happened? The voice identifies herself (I've never met her, but I know she is one of the permanent staff at the camp) then she questions me to see if I'm who I am. I say "yes."...thinking "just get to it lady...what has happened to my baby?" Then she tells me "There has been an incident"...heart is pounding hard and fast..."but we think Becky is okay." WHAT HAS HAPPENED??? My heart is screaming!!!

The lady on the other end FINALLY tells me that dd was stung twice yesterday by wasps and that she swelled up a lot, then they gave her Benedryl last night and she seems to be much better today. Okay, truthfully, she told me all this in a few seconds--it just seemed like FOREVER before my heart heard "everything is okay!" Whew! Not good for the ol' blood pressure. Deep breath...heart-beat getting back to normal...

Now, you're thinking... this woman is an overprotective nut! Surely kids get hurt all the time without it being a big deal. Well, in my defense, I've only got ONE to work with here! I'm not as experienced as some of you moms who have 4 or 5 or 10! You go through stuff like this enough times to be a bit calmer. I'm trying!

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon with an elderly friend of mine. We were talking about how much I missed not having a side-kick this week and she said "You're in training camp this week."

"Oh, no, " I said. "Becky is at training camp this week," thinking my friend was just confused.

She laughed and said, "No, I mean God has YOU in training this week to start cutting those apron strings!"

"NOOOOOOOO!!!! I'm not ready!" I replied.

I'm really NOT ready! Guess God doesn't much worry whether I think I'm ready or not. He IS working on me. He's using this week to help me see my real priorities. He's making me pay better attention to Mr. Fix-It.

Actually, Mr. Fix-It and I have had real conversations this week...among other things. We've had to soothe Squeaky because he misses his girl, we've apologized to the horses for their lack of TLC (we have fed them!), explained to the dogs each time we get out of the car, that "No, she's not in here" and we've accomplished a few chores together. I've even cooked a few meals this week! But it is so much more fun around here with dd's bright smile!

Now back to the phone call:
At this point, after hearing what happened and what they had done, I was calm and KNEW dd was fine. But since I had the chance...I decided to CHEAT and ask to talk to her. After assuring the lady that I was sure they had done everything necessary to take care of dd, I told her I would "feel better" if I could actually speak to dd. "Would that be possible?" I asked. I'm sure she was thinking this insecure mom didn't really believe her when she said that dd was okay. She agreed to my request and quickly went to get dd to come to the telephone.

When I heard that sweet voice say "Hey Mom!" my heart was filled with that wonderful feeling all of us moms get when we hear our children say our names. (Don't ya' know God feels the same when we talk to Him and call Him by name?) So, Mr. Fix-It comes into the room (shall I say running?) and I put the phone on 'speaker' so we could both talk to her. She assured us that she was just fine and 100% sure she did NOT want us to come get her! [NOTE: We aren't THAT bad! We were just kidding about going to pick her up!] She said she slept REALLY good last night with the Benedryl. Great! Now she's turned into a druggy like that Polish Girl in Brazil! (LOL!) She told us she was having a fantastic time and she would see us tomorrow anyway!

So, now that I've had my "Becky Fix" --even if I had to cheat a little to get it [so sue me!] ...I think I can make it! God is so good to let those little bugs get a bit of sweetness from my baby so that Mom could hear her voice.

Romans 8:28:

²⁸And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

Only a little over 26 hours to go....

Stay tuned.

[Addendum to this post]
After watching tonights national news, this post seems quite frivolous. It is. There are at least four families grieving for son's who died as a tornado hit their Boy Scout camp today. My heart grieves with them.