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I worry about the pillows, having crumbs on the floor, the little stains on the refrigerator door handle. I like for things to be just so in my living environment. But, after about a decade of focusing on such trivialities as a homemaker, I have that nagging feeling that something is missing. And it isn't God.

Like a lot of women, wives, mothers, I have fallen into the trap of developing the set design in my life and languishing a bit in the realm of character development. The family set and costuming are like protective forcefields for females. Whatever goes awry in the family nest can be neatly compensated for with the Wow Factor in the set design of the home. Women feel that social puzzles can work themselves out if the kids wear the right name brands and if Mom's pant size is small enough.

But the set and costumes don't make the play.

So, here I am, a thirty year old stay-at-home mother. I work from home. I have almost complete flexibility over my time and my activities. I live in a huge house. I can go anywhere anytime. But I am bored. Again, I don't need more God in my life.

What I need is more me in my life. I need to develop the main character in my life story.

A few years ago, as part of a theatrical venue I was starting, I had to take up carpentry for set design. At this time, I discovered that I could build anything I could imagine. But over the past 3 years, I have been in the throes of designing not just the set for my theater but the set for my life, feverishly fretting over the details, imagining the possibilities, working with the social dynamics of my set. And though at first, set design was part of my character development, it no longer is. My character can build things. My character can clean things. My character can move a couch from here to there. Though my personal carpentry endeavors played into my plot for several years, it is no longer the focus.

That plot has lulled and dozed off in the window seat of my life.

I realized, during my carpentry years, that if I build a nice enough set, that people will come. Like a hungry animal, waiting for prey, I've built sets to lure a cast of characters in to my life play. I think of it as a social trap. I make food and I set it near something else that people think they want, and people inevitably smell the food and come to my set. Once they are in my set, I try to get them each to play a part in my little script. I title every script, Fun with __________ and set about trying to orchestrate

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