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Girl Meets God

    by Melissa Mathews

Is That My Alarm?
Date Posted: October 29, 2006

"Fatal sentence: 'Oh, it doesn't matter just this once!'
Charlotte Mason

While I was on vacation in Missouri, I went to work with my mother one day. She is the one who helps everyone with their "freshman twenty" at Ozark Christian College in Joplin, Missouri. She is the dessert cook.

We didn't have much work to do, if you're used to this kind of work. We bagged peanut butter cookies, made rice krispy squares, and dished up apple and cherry cobbler for 300 people. We did all this while trying to keep the floor clean so the boy who mopped would still like us.

I was about half-way through the cookies, and mom had her cobbler almost ready to put in the oven when the fire alarm started going off.

This wasn't your little white-disc-on-the-ceiling that makes the shrill noise. This was much worse. This was the real fire alarm that brings big red engines. This was the real fire alarm that flashes and goes BLEEH, BLEEH, BLEEH, BLEEH until you think your ears are going to BLEEH-ed.

And we just kept working. The alarm kept strobing with that nasty noise, and we kept counting cookies and stirring cherries.

There were a few custodial people roaming around trying to find out what was wrong. There was construction going on upstairs, and everyone was just assuming the work had somehow caused a false alarm. BLEEH, BLEEH, BLEEH, BLEEH, BLEEH, BLEEH, BLEEH. And all of us kitchen people just kept on working, "One hundred sixty one, one hundred sixty-two, one hundred sixty-three..."

I fully expected the ceiling to fall in at any moment raining cinder and fire down upon my head. "One hundred sixty-four, one hundred sixty-five, one hundred sixty-six."

"This could be a real fire," I said. But no one listened. Everyone had too much work to stop. I imagined the fire-fighters axing open the door and bursting into the kitchen.

But we kept shuffling along sprinkling topping on the cobbler and packing cookies in a big, plastic tub. BLEEH, BLEEH, BLEEH the alarm continued to scream at us.

"One hundred sixty-seven, one hundred sixty-eight, one hundred sixty-nine."

BLEEH, BLEEH, BLE...

The busy bees had been right. It was a false alarm. Thank heaven my ears could finally rest.

It was hard not to wonder what might have happened if the alarm had been real, and we had just gone about our business while the roof caved in and all exits were shut off by flaming debris. It was hard not to draw a parallel to life.

We women stay so busy. Alarms could be going off all around, and we don't have time to notice.

You haven't had a real conversation with your husband in weeks.
You haven't been intimate in months.
You can't think of any trait you admire about him.

BLEEH, BLEEH, BLEEH...

The alarm might be going off in your marriage, and you are too busy to stop and see if the fire is real. You are too busy to throw baking soda on the flame while it is still small.

Maybe an alarm is going off with your kids. Something is not right, but you are trying to pretend you don't see.

Pay attention and listen hard in your role as wife and mother. Proverbs 18:9 says that "one who is slack in her work is sister to one who destroys."

BLEEH, BLEEH, BLE..

(Yes, it's a re-run. Since I've started teaching more than full time this year, my column writing time on Saturday night has become prime time with my family. If you are one of the two -Mom and Dad-who anxiously awaits a new column every week, I promise to find a new time to write.)

"Refreshment in Refuge" from Gina Burgess

The Servant Leader

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Biography Information:
I'm a preacher's kid, pastor's wife, and southern belle who married a Southern California boy. Can you say 'culture clash?' Scott and I have four boys - Max, Mark, Jackson, and Grant who keep us busy with homework and sports.

Scott and I have been married 22 years and currently live in Northern California where we are beginning year five as church planters. I also teach 12th grade English and love it.

I would love to hear from you. Email me anytime at melissa.g.mathews@gmail.com
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