I had my evening all planned out. I would drop Carter off at Awana, drive into town and get a sub (I was really craving one), drive back to the church, take Daniel to the nursery, sit in my car and be alone for an hour while I waited on church to be over. Because I’m an introvert, this whole being around people (even little people) 24/7 wears on me unless I get some time to regroup, especially through journaling. I had a pen, my journal, and I just knew my plan would work. Then I saw people that I really wanted to talk to and there were willing arms to hold the baby, so I walked through the fellowship hall and spoke with a few folks. I was so encouraged by the conversations I had, I decided to just stick it out and go to bible study. I walked in and immediately passed Daniel off. He got fussy, I took him back…and then he pooped.

At first I didn’t think anything of it, but then I felt something wet. He had just exploded all over himself and my arm! I quickly excused myself and held Daniel out away from my body hoping not to get anything else on me. We made it to the car (since I was totally unprepared to stay inside) and all I had to lay on the seat was a Farmer’s Furniture sales paper. Daniel’s bottom half was resting on the sales paper while his head was laying in a pile of Dorito crumbs and chocolate flecks that fell out of Carter’s booster seat when I moved it out of the way. I began trying to get the onesie off of him and every time I shifted it there were tracks of yellow left behind. I finally realized there was no way I could get it over his head without smearing the poop everywhere, so I went for it. He had patches of yellow above his eye and all down his arm. Clumps of chunky yellow poop were all over his side and back. And there was a squishy mess chunked all around the top of his diaper. My hand and arm were covered in yellow and no matter how many baby wipes I used, I still found spots that I had missed on both me and him. By this point I’m laughing; that’s all I could do. My poor kid has crumbly chips and chocolate stuck to the side of his head, poop streaks that I seemed to keep missing, and once I got the diaper off he had the sales paper stuck to his moist little bottom and it wouldn’t come loose.

This definitely was not the quiet hour I had hoped for this evening.

But it was the evening God had planned for me.

We had some nice times sharing with each other in bible study and then different groups got to get together and pray. Just the encouragement alone that I received earlier in the night was worth stepping out of my car, much less the great time in bible study and with prayer group.

Sometimes our plans aren’t his plans. Sometimes poop happens…for real! And sometimes we get blessed anyway. It was one of those nights.