If your child’s learner’s permit never shows up in the mail even though the online account you create shows that it was mailed a couple months ago and you think that calling the DMV to get a replacement sent is the way to go, you’d be mistaken. Instead you just go ahead and carve out a few hours in your super flexible schedule to drive on over to the DMV itself again with your child and talk to the nice people there and explain what happened and it all gets sorted out in-person face to face. At least that is what I was told after waiting on the phone for 18 minutes when I naively called the DMV thinking I could just request a replacement easy peasy from far away.

After piano lessons here shortly, we’re going to go try out this theory and see how smoothly it goes. Not that I have any doubt about it going completely perfectly smoothly. (Side note: if your child is 17, it appears she may bypass a second trip and instead request a replacement through the online account you took time to setup. Makes sense though when you really stop to think about it, right? To be honest, I stopped thinking about it before it made complete sense to me. I would think a 15 year old could just as competently request a replacement online as a 17 year old, but perhaps a lot of maturing happens in the interval of those two years that I am not aware of yet. Like I said, I stopped thinking about all that before my brain could fully follow the logic of the DMV. And, disclaimer, it was maybe age 18 and not 17. I’m not going to take the time to sign into my daughter’s account again, retrieve the security code that will be sent to her email as an extra precaution, and double check for you. Nothing personal. I just can’t do that again. Hope you understand.)

On a completely different note, I followed up today with Shutterfly about an order I placed on January 2 and that tracking shows is currently sitting in a post office in Morrow, GA since the 10th. Surprisingly Shutterfly is automatically sending me a replacement without making me show up anywhere in person. I realize this saves me a lot of time and makes a lot of sense, but what is the world coming to by depriving customers of in-person connection opportunities? Thankfully at least the DMV still strongly values that face to face experience.

Hold up! You don’t think Morrow, GA post office would happen to have my daughter’s learner’s permit sitting there on the shelf next to the orange Shutterfly envelope, do you? That thought just hit me. On second thought, nah. Very doubtful. Why would the post office want to clutter up their limited space by holding onto all my stuff? That doesn’t make any sense at all.

Part 2 – Take 2 at the DMV

My daughter and I went to the DMV after piano lessons. It was only a 30 minute drive one-way, which is really practically right around the corner here in Hotlanta, so it didn’t aggravate me or drive me crazy on any level that we were spending our time in this way. What else would we possibly want to do after piano lessons? Surely not go grab coffee like we traditionally do each week.

Upon arrival at the DMV, we went straight to the step 2 line because we didn’t think we needed to do anything in the step 1 line. What would we need an application for? Turns out, we did need step 1. So, we did step 1 and then went back to the step 2 line again, which was a bit longer by this point. No big deal. I love waiting. Especially at the DMV. Especially when it’s the second trip. Truth be told, it was only my first trip. My husband volunteered – or was volunteered; I forget exactly – for the initial excursion. So this was super special that I was being able to experience the exact same experience my husband and daughter had already enjoyed together. It was like reliving the good times. Sweet.

I don’t know what the employee thought when I asked if my daughter had to retake the learner’s permit test itself, but at this point, I felt I had no idea what to expect with this whole process. My daughter did not need to retake the test. She had the flimsy piece of paper from two months ago proving she had taken and passed the test. The lady used a tone and facial expression that communicated this was all obvious and logical. I agree. It was obvious and logical, but a few things up to this point had not been, which kept me on my toes guessing what was next.

Once successfully through the step 2 line, we then sat in the plastic blue chairs and waited some more. Within a few minutes another nice DMV lady had us fill out paperwork and had my daughter smile into the camera for another photo for another promised learner’s permit.

The employee’s last words were eerily similar to the words concluding trip 1 to the DMV: we should receive the permit within a month. However, she added an additional very important instruction: but if it doesn’t show up again, check with the post office. Interesting. I hadn’t even told her about my orange Shutterfly envelope sitting for days in the Morrow post office. It was like she just knew. Pretty impressive.

Why do we go through the trials we do? I have no idea. But we do. We wake up and face what comes at us. We show up at the DMV if needs be. We care for the ailing spouse. We persevere through the hard studies. We endure the unexpected breakup. We suffer the loss, the pain, the challenge. We do what we have to do. Because God is up to something and just because we can’t see the big picture doesn’t give us license to throw in the towel or throw a hissy fit.

Whether your problems today are huge burdens or minor irritations, Psalm 68:19 is a promise to cling to: “Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears us up; God is our salvation. Selah.”

We have a promise that God will bear us up every single day of life. Today. Tomorrow. And the day after that. No matter what we are facing. No matter how much it lacks sense. No matter how much it is crushing us. We want to know the why. We want the world to make sense and follow predictable patterns. God knows the reason. The whole situation is under His control. And perhaps most importantly, He is good. We fight these realities to our detriment. Let’s fight to trust instead.

Full disclosure – When I checked my mail at the end of the day, the orange Shutterfly envelope arrived. Oh the irony. My only current spiritual take away is praise God the original permit did not show up then. I don’t know that I could have borne that. Then again, God promised to bear me up. So, had the misplaced permit arrived, God would have helped me. He promised.

This has been a therapeutic post to write. I know the situation is inconsequential, but it is representative of all the truly maddening, frustrating, difficult, confusing trials we endure. God’s promise equally applies to every one of them. Our responsibility equally applies as well.

The secret to facing trials is succinctly stated in Proverbs 3:5, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.”

Total trust. That’s all we have to do. Every time. Easy peasy. If only.