WARNING: This post contains absolutely no depth and not an ounce of meaning…

I can laugh at Monday’s crazy commute to and from ballet in the light of Tuesday morning. And last night wasn’t anything that couldn’t be mended by take-out food eaten on the sofa in my pajamas after our wild child had gone to bed.

Sadie has been happy lately, and we breathe thanks all the time for her improved mood. But yesterday in the car she got a little too happy. Things started to lean toward chaos when Maggie, 13, screamed like only a 13-year-old can scream that ants were streaming out of Sadie’s car seat, which had been left overnight in the driveway. After pulling over, taking all the fabric off the seat and beating it on the grass, I shoved the plastic monster in the trunk, buckled Sadie into a seatbelt and sped toward the dance studio. That’s when we detected An Odor. And I’d left home without the diaper bag.

No worries—I found a spare Pull-Up and did a quick change in the parking lot while the tardy ballerinas ran into class. “Just tell your teacher there was an ants incident!” I yelled as they ducked inside.

“It’s just you and me, kid,” I said, looking back at Sadie, who had been giggling ever since the ants incident. “You’ve got to stay in your seatbelt.”

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When you come to the end of yourself, sometimes the only thing to do is laugh.

After last week’s good, long pout, it dawned on me I needed to just roll my eyes at how seriously I was taking myself. The children had gone back to school, and after a busy Monday of tidying up loose ends around the house, I was bereft. What was I supposed to do now? Something important, surely. Something kingdom-glorifying and worthy of all those quiet hours between the sound of bus brakes at the end of the drive.

So I walked the dog and read good books and puttered around the garden and waited for The Big Answer. By Thursday I was begging Him to tell me what to do.

Write, silly.

Well, I replied, I sort of figured that much. Good to know, nonetheless. But, if you please, write what? Something for you, certainly. Something bigger and better than I’ve written before. And, as long as I’m placing my order, something those literary agents will snatch up instead of spending eons deciding whether to take me on or spit me out like yesterday’s Bazooka. (Right now a handful of them are taking their sweet-as-sorghum time over considering my last project. I thought New Yorkers were notoriously speedy.)

Perhaps some of the pressure over what to write is because of this publishing purgatory I’ve put myself in. Can I really stand to shove another book under my bed? Then there’s all that motive checking, which goes something like: Idea. Is that too commercial? Idea revised. Who would read that? I wouldn’t. New idea. What a sell-out. Idea chucked. Nap.

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 Sadie, our eight-year-old autistic daughter, has taught me more than anyone about how I can do all things through Him.

Adventure Girl was avoiding the ocean, I was sad to see during the beginning of our Boggs-clan beach trip to St. George. Why was Sadie under the tent with the old ladies (including me) instead of trying to swim to Mexico? We’d tied a rope to her lifejacket, anticipating her usual zest for the water.

But here was a nervous Sadie, a quiet Sadie, like Tigger without his bounce. When, on day four, Sadie dipped in a tentative toe, I seized the chance and plopped down in the shallow waves, motioning for her to sit on my lap. All I had to do was seat my fanny in the wet sand, but it was no small thing, since my policy has always been to STAY OUT, way out , under-the-tent-with-the-old-ladies-out, away from anything that could possibly nibble or brush up against or bite.

When Sadie finally sat, it took my breath away. There was no turning back, and it seemed the only thing to do was start singing—hymn after hymn. Sadie smiled big when she heard His name.

She kept smiling for almost an hour, squishing her feet in the muck and splashing with her fingers and asking for more music. “Want to do again,” she would say, putting her hands on my face if I stopped. We eventually headed in for supper, shriveled like raisins but happy.

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