day 24: carrying on at midnight

Know what the powers-that-be were doing at midnight tonight?

(okay, actually last night, because I am writing this the day after)

Arguing on how to spend our government's money.

Which basically boils down to this question: will military members get paid their wages for the work they are required to do?

Know what I was doing at midnight tonight?

Having a much needed fun night with friends.

Went to their house, out in the country, where my heart is the most at home.

The kids ran in the yard, playing in the treehouse, holding the baby ducklings, playing capture the flag, etc.

The adults ate around the campfire, shivered in the crisp air when the sun went down, and shared a lot of good laughs together.

After dark, we drug our chairs over to the tarp tightly stretched between two trees, hooked up a projector, speakers, and a DVD player, and watched Tangled.....until, even under layers of blankets, we decided to give up and head to the house to finish the movie.

There were more kids than adults crowded onto the couches and pillows and under blankets in that small living room, but we couldn't have been any happier.

Simple times, extreme contentment.....almost.

If only I could've had my husband, the daddy of my three kids, there with us.

I couldn't help but cry a few tears when we first got settled in outside to begin the movie, and McK, without much hesitation, climbed up on another dad's lap who was also there with his family. I warned him that she would give him a complete play-by-play and editorial of the movie, and true to my word, she did. Yet my heart was wrenched in pain that as she sat under the light of the crescent moon, she could not sit on her own Daddy's lap--under the moon that also shone over her Daddy on the other side of the world.

Later on, she fell asleep on the living room floor, the only one to crash before the night was through. Another friend carried my sleeping baby girl out to the car for me.

Friends.

I simply would not be able to get through my day-to-day without them right now. They're part of the glue that is holding me together.

I think I climbed in bed while the government itself was still debating whether or not I was to figure out how to survive on my own measly private school salary for a while. But I honestly wasn't sweating it too much by that point. Why? Am I dumb? Nope. Simply surrounded by a God whose grace is much larger than I can even begin to comprehend, who perfectly places genuine friends into my life who've got my back, who will help to see that my family is held as intact as possible.