I poured a cup of coffee, but before I could sit down at my computer, Meg had a task for me. So the coffee sat down while I went to get a ladder. She was up on the counters stringing lights and Ezekiel was playing in the fake snow (actually couch stuffing we bought years ago). With snow flying everywhere, Meg asked him to stop so he tossed the bag onto the kitchen table…

… hitting my cup and pouring coffee all over my computer. Hot coffee poured out of the keys and vents as I got towels… turned on fans…

Who to blame: Mr E was the obvious choice. But he was surprisingly obeying his Mom. So maybe Meg, who was ordering us around to get Christmas decorations up. If we stopped listening I would be enjoying coffee and E would be playing in the “snow”… but that path seems destined for pain… If only we did not have to put up Christmas decorations. Really that is a problem. And who started Christmas?!

God gets the blame for a lot of things in life (too many cling to the view that God causes everything). In reality God grants us free will and our choices have a plethora of consequences. Cascading effects — often we can not even discern the exact cause. But the domino train of life keeps crashing around us.

Rather than point fingers or rant against God, the best thing we can do is work together. The struggles will continue to crash, but the healing comes as we work together. And we will find, striving together, maybe problems never arrive. They were caused by us in the first place. 
For instance, if I started helping Meg before she asked, rather than get myself another cup of coffee…

---

On the computer. ~ After drying, the computer started up… but the wifi didn’t work, nor half the ports. I resigned myself to owning an old school computer that required an ethernet cable… but throughout the day everything slowly came back to life! I guess it just needed to dry.