My head was dizzy, and my nose congested from the cold that’s knocked me out since Christmas Eve. I had a goal to reach: to get all my stuff packed by this Friday. I’d unintentionally filled the entire upstairs family room with my stuff. I was OVERWHELMED, and felt like I had too little and too much to take with me. But I was going to do this and get it done.
This is what my parents have seen for the past month (and this is after I organized everything).
I already stuffed eleven months worth of clothes into packing cubes, and now I was moving onto toiletries. I took out my travel size bottles and began labeling in purple Sharpie: “Shampoo”, “Conditioner”, and “Body Wash”. The darn plastic on the bottle kept rejecting the ink and smearing. Whatever, I thought to myself, I’ll just be careful not to touch it too much and maybe the writing will stay. (Heads up, I’m big on organizing and planning and I like to feel like I have it all under control).
I’ve researched how Tea Tree oil can be used to prevent lice by simply mixing a few drops into your shampoo and conditioner, so I thought I’d give it a try. I squirted my shampoo into the bottle, and mixed a bit of tea tree oil in with it, and I repeated this for the conditioner. Everything was going smoothly, and I prided myself on how prepared I was.
I looked down and noticed that there was a little room left in my shampoo bottle. Well, I’ll top myself off. I grabbed what I thought was shampoo and gingerly squirted a thick blob inside. But the color didn’t look the same. I looked down at what I’d just poured into my shampoo bottle, and lo and behold it was conditioner!
I panicked and opened up the palm of my hand trying to sqeeze out the contaminated shampoo and salvage the good stuff. (I still don’t know what I was thinking by sqeezing it into my hand). It was a mess and it was all my fault!
I got up to run into the bathroom only to knock over my tea tree oil onto the carpet. Blast! Immediately the carpet soaked up the oil and the potent fumes began filling the air (I only imagined how it smelled because I was too congested to smell it myself). I still had the blob of conditioner in my palm and I needed to rinse it.
Maybe the smell isn’t really that bad, I thought as I ran my hand under the bathroom sink. I went out into the family room where the oil had spilled; it had already soaked deep into the carpet. Dang it! My stomach soured at the waste. Nearly all of the oil had spilled.
“What’s that smell?” I heard my dad say from downstairs.
The fumes had wafted downstairs by now and were filling the house.
“It’s probably Ariane doing her nails.” my mom answered.
Did I say anything? Nope. My head pounded, and my thoughts were fuzzy. I was more overwhelmed now than when I had first begun.
This is a disaster!
I wanted to cry. I wanted to laugh.
I laughed, and headed downstairs to confess.
Stupid Tea Tree Oil.
It’s past Friday now. Did I get everything packed? No. Do all my toiletries and the carpet smell of tea tree oil? Yes.
I wanted to spend all of Friday packing, but God told me no. I needed a day of rest. I’m still overwhelmed by everything, but God is teaching me to persevere even in the small things. Perseverance produces character (Romans 5:4) and character must be developed to match the calling that God places on you. I believe without a doubt that God has called me to the World Race and He is using everything to develop character in me that matches that calling.
I’m not done packing, and that’s okay. I’m overwhelmed, but that’s okay too. Because God is using something as tedious as packing and logistics to develop character–and sometimes He throws in a little comic relief just for laughs.
