Do you play solitaire?

Good morning everyone. I hope you are having a wonderful day.

I'm a little sad today. Mom has been visiting with me for quiet a while. Dad drove from Georgia last week to take her home. They left this morning. I had a wonderful week-end with them and was sad that they had to go back to Georgia. Please pray that their trip will be safe and that they will sell their house so they can move here permanently.

They left VERY early. I'm not a morning person. I wanted to finish a post for the blog, but found myself staring with sleepy eyes at a blank screen.

I looked at a little e-mail and browsed through some websites. My heart just wasn't into deep thought. Finally I decided to go lay down, but first I would play a game of spider solitaire.

Sometimes, that game seems to give me a little spurt. I don't play it very often but have found when I feel out of sorts it seems to help. This morning I looked at the screen and wondered why I thought a silly game that doesn't matter to anyone would be stimulating. I enjoy purpose. I am driven to find purpose in almost everything in my life. Why at this moment does a mindless game of simply sorting seem appropriate?

My mom and Dad are very organized people. Everything has a place and it "must" return to it's place - or else! Since I'm a free thinker who needs everything around me at once - translation - a messy writer.....very few things have "a place". Needless to say messy daughter and organized parents rarely see eye to eye on the proper care of houses. I'm just not your typical "I've got to be cleaning or sorting" person.

So why did I feel the need to sort a bunch of make believe cards? For those of you that don't play solitaire - the game is very simple. 100 cards are dealt into 10 piles. You can only see the top card. You have to sort the cards by numbers from face cards to 10 and 10-2 and finish with the Ace. Once you have made one row of those, the computer will place that run at the bottom of the screen. Each time you move one of the cards in the rows, it reveals another card underneath. You keep sorting and moving until all the cards are in their proper suit and run and at the bottom of your screen.

It's a challenging game in that you can get stuck if you don't make the right moves to allow the hidden cards to be shown. But it's not rocket science to simply sort the cards into piles.

So why did I feel the need to sort a bunch of cards?

I started getting angry just thinking that I somehow had this need. I remembered a quote from the movie "You've got mail". One of the characters remarked that an entire company had to have solitaire removed from it's computer banks because too many employees were wasting time during work playing solitaire. I also remembered a lawyer I used to work for who would spend hours playing on the computer because he said he was bored!

What could possibly be more boring than playing a computer card game? It doesn't matter to anyone, it's completely repetitious and there are no redeeming qualities whatsoever.....

Man!....the more I thought about this, the more frustrated I became. I started to shut the computer down and fix some coffee when it dawned on me why we find this game so alluring.

My parents are leaving. One son is changing jobs. Ron is considering retirement. Another son is overwhelmed with a growing business. A friend is sick. Another friend is contemplating divorce. Still another friend is making a bad choice. My daughter is thinking about moving very far away. Still more company is coming and my house is a mess.

My life is wonderful - but very busy. None of the family issues we face can be solved quickly. Every situation will take time and energy to resolve.

But sitting at my computer I can take a mess (of cards) and quickly resolve it into an organized set. And subconsciously that is comforting.

Is your life a mess right now? Please send me a prayer request and I will pray for you. Find something in your life that will give you a moments release.

Maybe it will be taking the time to spend a minute with God.

You might enjoy getting up early and watching the sunrise.

Maybe it's reading 10 pages of an interesting novel.

Perhaps it's watching some old sit com.

Maybe you need to take the grand kids to get ice cream.

Maybe you need to leave your own kids with grandma while you and your spouse get ice cream.

It doesn't really matter what you do - but today find a release. Find a way to let your subconscious know that something in your life is in order.

I will pray for you.

God loves you

Debbie