Our new used car is in the shop again.

It's been in the shop for two days because this little airbag light came on.

I really don't see why a car would need to be in the shop for two days for a tiny little light on the dash, but apparently it's a big deal if you get in a car accident and your airbags don't go off.

Consequently, I have been stuck in the house for two or three days with a four year old and an 8 month old. This is very disturbing to me because usually when I can't think of anything to do, I say, "Get your shoes on. We're going out!" I can still say that, I mean, we go for walks and stuff, but it's almost ninety degrees outside and I'm a wimp. And going for a walk can only take up so much of your time.

So here's what we've done since we've been homebound: made brownies, ate brownies, played Rapunzel (Chloe always gets to be Rapunzel-we attach a scarf to the back of her dress underneath her real hair and let the scarf hang down. Then I pretend to climb up it. We do this over and over), glued construction paper to an old diaper box and decorated the box, made noodle art, worked on math skills and sight words, played games on the computer, folded laundry, made a zoo out of stuffed animals, and whined when we didn't get our way (we all did that). We also played outside with the water table and splashed each other.

Oh, and the grown-ups had Bible Study at our house last night. Our Bible Studies go like this: we have snacks and drink and then we study the book of Hebrews. We have been in chapter two of Hebrews for over a month now. This is not for lack of concentrating, on the contrary, we happen to disect and focus on and discuss almost every little nuance of the text.

Last night, the subject of Jesus being tempted in the garden of Gethsemane came up. We talked about how it is likely Gethsemane is the point where Jesus takes on the full realization of what taking on the sins of the world actually means. It's heavy. Really heavy. On top of that, Satan comes along and tempts Jesus again (Remember, he tempted Him in the desert). This time, the temptations come with the weight of all humanity in play, so to speak. Again...heavy stuff.

This morning I remembered a speaker that I heard at a woman's retreat I was attending a few years ago. The subject was the garden of Gethsemane. Here's kind of a summary of what I remember, in my own words, not the speakers, because as I said it was a few years ago.

We (as women) size each other up. We compare ourselves to other women all the time. Are we prettier? Smarter? Is this woman a threat to me? We may not even be aware that we are doing it, but we know we all do it.

Here's what we need to keep in mind. "Every woman has her Gethsemane." In other words, if something hasn't happened to you yet to make you feel like the weight of the world is on you in a very heavy way, it will. And if we keep this idea in mind when we look at each other, we won't be so quick to see the negative. More likely, we'll be quick to feel a sort of comradeship or kindredness. (Is that a word?) Somewhere in the back of our mind we can think, "Hey, I've been there too."

Now of course, if you want to get technical, we won't ever have a Gethsemane experience like Jesus had. But Jesus had that experience so He could say in a very real way, "Hey, I've been there too."

Anyway, that's my thought for today.

And being stuck in the house without a car for a few days is an inconvenience, but it's no Gethsemane.

Thank goodness.