Hanging Tough?

"life isn't fair." It's something we've drilled into our kids since they were toddlers, and yet I still expect life to be fair sometimes as an adult! What is wrong with me that I actually think things will work out..and to my advantage...in my timing....and exactly the way I want them... Yeah, I'm laughing too. Must be drinking too much eggnog. We found out this morning that the dog (Angel's puppy) we were offered back in October (long story) was basically adopted right out from under us. Nothing happened the way we were promised. We were all excited about him coming here. Epic fail, as the kids would say. I lamented a bit more about that on her personal blog so I won't go into detail here. And while that seems like not such a big deal, it's just another drop in the bucket of disappointments this year. We keep wondering what is going on, and yet part of me already knows. See, I began praying fervently about some very specific things...friendships, money, parenting,church, and some other big ones too. I knew God would answer, as He always does, it's just that His answers have really rocked my boat. Most of his answers are difficult to take. I know this because I've been listening. I've noticed some friendships fizzling for my own good. I've noticed some heavy discipline in the financial department. I've received some direction that I can't believe I have to take. I wanted this dog for my family so bad that I was blinded by it. God said "no." He tells me "no" quite often, and I'm glad He is guiding, but I'd be lying if I said it was easy to take. After Friday night's news of no dog, I put my head down on my computer and I cried. I could tell the girls were feeling worse for me than for themselves, as they just said, "Mom, it's okay. It's just not meant to be and at least he has a home". I felt like a child as I simply muttered back, "i'm so tired of being let down." But in fact, I'm not let down that often. I just feel that way. God never lets me down, but He does discipline me in a way I need to be disciplined. Like a child, I don't like to hear it, but I need it. I am blessed to have this family to go through all of these things with, good, bad, ugly, and dogless too. Serena has been dealing with some friendship troubles at school that have just had me seething! I am just tired of all the peaty mean people in her life. I was having an emotional reaction on a "decompress" drive, and suddenly I felt God giving me this, "stop giving this so much weight. It's not as important as you think." What? I went back home and had a nice long talk with Serena in efforts to make her feel better and learn how to deal with this in a mature, Christian way. It turns out she was already doing that. I'm the one who went all postal. She said to me, "sure, it hurts. I thought she was my best friend, but you know what? Best friends don't do that to each other, so I guess it was time to let her go." Wow. If only I could be that mature under pressure! Again, though, I was compiling my feelings about all the things going wrong and i was reacting to them. Weak moments just get us into trouble. With God's grace, I can do all of these new challenging things. I can handle all of God's answers. And once in awhile, I'll be as mature as my 12 year old when I do it!