God Be In My Head

God be in my head, and in my understanding;
God be in mine eyes, and in my looking;
God be in my mouth, and in my speaking;
God be in my heart, and in my thinking;
God be at mine end, and at my departing.
–Sarum Primer, 1558

God be in my hands when I pull the blanket up over my silly son’s head, just the way he likes it.

God be in my feet when I’m tramping across campus to another rehearsal.

God be in my eyes when I’m driving to the grocery store late at night to buy eggs to make cookies because I said I’d bring them to class tomorrow, and there’s no time in the morning.

God be in my words when it’s an hour past bedtime and my daughter is still wide awake.

God be in my mind when I’m doing my taxes and wondering where the money will come from.

God be in my waking, which comes too early.

God be in my sleeping, which comes too late.

God be in my head when I fold socks and underpants and shirts in silent prayer, and forgive me this one night for being too busy to fold my hands.

Little Things, Big God

Does God give us the best parking places?  I’m gonna have to say a reluctant “no” on that one.  It’d be nice to imagine that he stuck his divine finger into the traffic patterns and made all the people at Safeway just not notice that one really great spot, but somehow it doesn’t really mesh with that whole free will thing.

At the same time, there are occasions where you have to sit back and think, “Well, HUH.  Sure wouldn’t have figured that to happen by chance.”

One of my responsibilities at one of my university jobs is getting the student accompanists lined up with the student vocalists for their weekly lessons.  Trying to get a nearly immovable voice studio schedule coordinated with five student schedules, making sure that every vocalist has an accompanist and every student accompanist has enough hours … well, it makes those little Chinese triangle puzzles seem like a BREEZE.  Oh, and none of the piano players who are also taking voice lessons can accompany themselves.  Yes, it crossed my mind.

This evening I finally had to call it quits after a few hours on the computer dealing with scheduling, emails, and a bunch of other stuff that’s really boring to write about.  Nobody was available in the late afternoon, and those are the times when I either can’t be there at ALL because of another commitment, or when I want desperately to be home with my children on the two days a week I always have them.  Yes, I could cover those lessons, but oh my goodness I didn’t want to have to stay an hour late two days a week while my children let themselves into the house and waited for Mama to come home!

And then at 11:30 p.m. I got the last student schedule in my email inbox.  She only wants three students.  She’s available every afternoon until 4:00.  Problem completely solved, in less than two minutes.

God?  Maybe not.  But I’m going to thank Him anyway, just in case.