A Loose Screw

By: Steph Fink

www.encouragedinheart.org

It was one of those days, weeks…okay, months.

My hubby’s travel schedule was insanely high and my sons’ healths were extremely low.  Add in “life”, and this Momma was beginning to feel like I had more than a few loose screws.

For four straight weeks, somebody had something.  We almost made it through the week without one of our kids being sick; the key word being almost.  On Thursday, the school representative called to say that our oldest had a fever.  As I raced to collect my little bear cub, I noticed that the “check tire pressure“ light illuminated from my dash board…and spirit.  

My tires weren’t the only thing that felt a little deflated.  

I pumped my 102 degree honey with some ibuprofen and proceeded to the gas station.  As I checked the air pressures of my tires, I found it, my loose screw, wedged into my minivan tire.  It’s pathetic to admit that I had an LOL moment there, outside in public, about the whole loose screw thought.

Hello crazy lady filling her tire, laughing alone, like a mad scientist.

As I filled three of my four deflated tires, I realized that I was in the perfect position, knelt, moderately crazy and desperate.  Every day I’m desperate for God, but it takes the loose screw days, to confirm it.  Right then and there was as good a time as any to talk with God.  I used the remainder of the time, to fill er’ up, both my tires and my spirit.  

I needed to fill up on God so I could get through that month, which punctured and slowly deflated the air out of the tire of my life.  So with two sons inside the minivan and one loose screw Momma on the outside, I talked to God.  God heard my cry for help (Psalm 34:15), cared (1 Peter 5:7), and it filled me with the fullness of God, not insanity (Ephesians 3:19). 

Later that night, our other son, had a bedtime meltdown of epic proportions.  He went into a tearful litany of how so many things were, “Not fair!”  He was just overtired and oh, how I could relate.  The only difference was that I was the responsible adult even thought I really, really didn’t want to be.  What my son needed was the same thing I needed just hours ago, to cry out, be cared for and filled up.  Oh yeah, and his back scratched too.

So I turned off the lights, hopped into his bed and gave my son the same gift God gave me earlier, a present and engaged audience for the next episode of, “As The World Is Not Fair”. 

“He makes us lie down in green pastures”, (err, I mean in a stuffed animal-filled bed) to be refreshed and comforted (Psalm 23).  

Somewhere between finding that I indeed had a screw loose, and that my son had strep again, I also realized that running on empty is one of the most dangerous places for a mother to be.  It’s more dangerous than a half off shoe sale, with cash and a coupon in hand…yeah, that dangerous. 

If you’re feeling like me, that maybe you just might have a screw loose too, I want to encourage you to check your pressure level, don’t keep runnin’ on empty.  Fill er’ up to enjoy, not just endure, whatever is causing the temporary deflation.  God cares, God comforts and God will fill er’ up…whether you have a screw loose or not!