Swarm.

As typical with every time I go home, I came back with a car loaded to the max with goodies from my parents. {Christmas decorations, garage sale items and the contents of my mom's fabric closet might not sound like goodies to you, but they are to me!}

The full nature of my car meant that I needed help unloading it. Naturally, I asked my strong, rugged husband to meet me at the house to get the heavy boxes. Unbeknownst to him, I also mentally made plans that it would be so late in the day that there would be no need to go back to work and we would just have to go drop my rental car off and then deliver a gift to church.

Imagine my delight when Cody wasn't waiting at home when I pulled up. In fact, he was just leaving work, which gave me a good 15-20 minutes to unload the car. By myself. Yeah, I was one happy girl.

When he did finally get there to get the heavy boxes, he was greeted by steam coming out of my ears. I then told him my plans for the afternoon (the car and church), to which he told me he planned on going back to work and left some important items there. I'm ashamed to say I was close to blowing a gasket.

I told him to go on to work, I'd make the church delivery and then take the car to work, where I would then ride home with him. He left a fuming wife and headed to finish up work.

My mom once heard that your expectations are here ------------









and reality is here -------------

Anything in-between is disappointment, which is exactly what happened in my case. But I used my unrealistic expectations as a reason to get angry instead of just admitting why I was disappointed.

After only a few minutes in the car to run my errand, I already knew I was in the wrong and got upset for no reason. Yet in my human nature, I tried to find reasons in my head as to why I had the right to be mad at Cody's actions.

I was doing a rather good job at it, when I saw one bee fly past my car. Then two, three, four more, until I was surrounded by a swarm of bees. I've never seen anything like it in my years in Abilene, and I could tell the people around me were just as surprised.

My anger started out small, yet I did not stop it at the first sign and instead allowed it to become a swarm of bees that surrounded me. Without the protection of my car, I would have been powerless against the multitude of bees. It was such an instant, visual lesson from the Lord and all of my excuses for justifying my anger disappeared. I was wrong and there was no getting around it.

Next time you see the beginnings of a swarm, stop and ask yourself if you hear a Voice if conviction. Better to acknowledge your reality than to get stung by unrealistic expectations!


{and just for good measure, I found a bee IN my car after I finished grocery shopping on Saturday. I quickly told God I learned the lesson and shooed that thing out as quickly as possible!!}