I Shouldn't Get Frustrated

To start this, I'll have to give a little back story...

I have inherited a nephew Brandon from my new marriage. He's a cool kid and I love him and really smart, so Lorie and I were at Sam's Club and saw a book that he would love about a month ago, but we were grocery shopping and busy, so we thought we'd come back and get it (like doing it then would have taken more time then coming back later, I don't get how that worked out in my head).

Yesterday, the merry 23rd, we go back to Sam's to get the book for Brandon. It's gone. Craptacular. So we go to other bookstores looking for the coveted special book. And nothing. Everyone is sold out. So at Borders, the last stop of the night, we're looking and...! No book. It's gone. So we decide to get him the Chronicles of Narnia instead (also good books).

This morning, my wonderful and lovely wife tells me that she thinks Brandon already has Narnia, information that would have been useful at the bookstore. We of course don't know for sure and have to call his mom, grandma, all these people to find out that yes, he does have them. So what are we going to do now? And that brings up this whole debate on what to get, what to do, etc. Getting more and more frustrated, I finally just say I'll go back to Borders, on Christmas Eve (which makes me all happy inside) and shop (which makes me even more happy inside) and take back his gift and find him another book. But that leads to, "What are you going to get? What if he doesn't like it?" and a plethora of other questions.

So finally, ticked off and frustrated, I drive back to Borders feeling crappy about having to shop and bad that I have to make someone work on Christmas Eve. I go in the store, and what is on the display shelf, right at the front of the store, restocked and looking all pretty? The original book we wanted.

God knows what He's doing. He'll even take care of little things like the perfect gift for a nephew. It's always tougher following God through the situation than after when we see why all the frustration and problems. If we didn't pick up a book Brandon already had, we wouldn't have gone back and seen that they had more copies put out that morning. I had to go through the frustration to find that out, and now I'm happy that I did.

Merry Christmas Brandon, I hope you like the book, and Merry Christmas to everyone else. Hopefully I'll see you tonight at the 7:00 service (or tomorrow, I'm preaching!)

T