Stepping back and seeing the pattern.

I'm looking back over the 6 months or so and I'm noticing a pattern. Over and over again I am finding myself stunned, shocked, thrown off kilter, perturbed, etc... because of new information popping up that I 'should' have known about, but for some reason didn't.

Here's an example or two:

• Every parent from my kindergartner's class (except me) receiving weekly emails from the teacher and me feeling really out of touch (And A getting really sad every time I didn't remember something that I didn't know about yet).
• I did a secret shop, performed it to the letter, then had an editor contact me to tell me that I had done it wrong and that the instructions stated blah, blah, blah... when in fact, my instructions didn't say that. To which she replies "Well, they used to. Sorry, we're not going to pay you for that job." What?! (And, I did request to speak to the manager about the secret shop job, AND got paid, btw...)

What I felt at the core was this: I cannot be held responsible for something I don't know. AND- it's not fair.

Each situation was not life-changing or too big to deal with- but yet each situation left me with a choice:
1. Whine and complain, then blame others who dropped the ball.
2. Pick up whatever pieces were left, dust them off and attempt to put them back together with grace.

Initially I thought it was just some part of my crazy love for organization or structure that was making me have a problem with it- but then on Wednesday it hit me. These two examples were only a fraction of the events like this that have happened to me lately. It's happening OVER and OVER and OVER again (Weird, I know).

Thankfully, I was able to sit and think about it while reflecting with a friend the other day and I saw the pattern... The HUGE pattern. Not only had it been happening over and over again- but I realized that I progressively handled the situations with more and more grace/peace. Let's just say that the secret shop job, I landed on door #1 (blood boiling, keep your tone-down, Sarah..., thank God this is over the phone so they can't see how angry you look, etc.). Others, I was able to go with door #2... :)

And, after seeing such a grand pattern: I finally submitted my heart to God over it. I told him that I recognized that it was a lesson He was attempting to teach me- and that I was failing in big and small ways repeatedly. I surrendered the blame, anger, unfairness, etc. and asked Him for help the next time around. I can't help but think that I have a whopper coming around the corner at me though. Lord, let me be ready and let me choose door #2.