The point of this was?

9:31 p.m. Today's project was to acccompany my son Kriss to Long Beach. Of course, the way my days go, lots had taken place before he arrived at 10:30.

Since we were going to be gone until 2 or 3 p.m. round trip, I had arranged for the caregiver to come over at 9:00, and he was prompt as usual. He and Steve took off to walk the dogs. My other prompt arrival, Candy, a consultant on my Mary Kay team, arrived while I was getting dressed upstairs. She had volunteered to help organize my customers by their birthday month, a tedious task for me as a non-detail, "big picture" type. I'm an "I" personality that we talk about in our business, for "Influential." Candy is an "S"= "Steady" She's a deliberate, organized, efficient, businesslike person who gets things done. I whipped us up some special eggs with sausage, Herdez chunky red salsa, pepper jack cheese, soft-scrambled in butter, while she worked.

Kriss arrived in his new Toyota Cruiser F5, came in and visited with his dad. I did a litlle last minute personal prep and off we went. I really looked forward to this outing after the harrowing episode we had at the adult daycare center yesterday. Plus, just to go to a big city is refreshing to this suburbanite, because it reminds me of my years in Westwood as a UCLA Bruin. Plus, the ocean-blown air there is always cool and clean. Thank you, Lord for Your creation! Psalm 147:15-18 reminds us of the way He commands all of nature:

He sends out His command to the

earth;

His word runs very swiftly.

He gives snow like wool;

He scatters the frost like ashes;

He casts out His hail like

morsels;

Who can stand before His cold?

He sends out His word and melts

them;

He causes His wind to blow, and

the waters flow.

Kriss and I went about our errand without really getting anything accomplished, unfortunately, but the timing of all of human endeavors is the Lord's. We can't let one day's frustration taint a process that needs to play itself out. Believers would do well to remember that, whether in personal or business goals. Ecclesiastes 3:9-11a not only points out the frustration of men's efforts, but the timing, which God controls:

What profit has the worker from that in which he labors? I have seen the God-given task with which the sons of men are to be occupied. He has made everything beautiful in His time.

Few magnificent achievements happen overnight! Even the recently deceased Steve Jobs, Apple founder and "the Edison of our time," creator of the personal computer, was let go from the corporation he founded, Apple! The a few years later he came back with a greater invention than ever before: the MacIntosh computer!

What did our long day accomplish? Kriss and I had wonderful mother-son fellowship, and are delighted with his wife Marisela's progress in her pregnancy--they heard the baby's heartbeat at an early morning doctor appointment today! His managerial position with Starbucks is going well

as is Marisela's job. Even their King Charles spaniel Penny Lane is filled out and gorgeous now, and much calmer than in the past. The temporal details that tend to have us tied in knots will work out--as God wills.

Reflecting on our time, conversation and hopes for the future, I find myself looking again to the passage in Ecclesiastes from the Lord's perspective, v. 11:

He has made all things beautiful in His time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.

While we work things out here, may we continue to long for eternity and our true home!