As I See It

Sometimes you have a day where everything is wrong. A day where the only thing that really goes right is that the sun rises in the east. A day full of harsh moments and strange changes in plan. That was my day yesterday. I drove through and got chicken nuggets out of desperation for food (since being pregnant has meant reluctantly including meat in my diet). Hungry, worn-out, and hoping for an easy meal, I asked for honey mustard sauce for my nuggets. After parking so I could scarf my food before continuing on with my day, I pulled out the container and tried to open it. Nothing. The container wouldn’t open. As I sat there, tugging at the foil, the picture of my day fell into place. This day was like feudally trying to open something that refused to budge.

I dropped the honey mustard sauce in my lap and stared through my windshield, the events of my day washing over me like a wave of sand. Suffocating. Grainy. Unnatural. The compulsion towards self pity is so strong, that often, it feels impossible to overcome. There is an ease in sinking into your own misery and fears. There is a magnetism that pulls out every thought you have been keeping at bay in these moments. And if you sit there long enough, you will forget that God uses days like this for days that are harder.

So then, I dug in the bag for a napkin so I could eat my naked nuggets, only to find another honey mustard sauce container. I pulled it out, and, unlike the first, it opened easily. 

Most of the time life feels like that first container. You tug, pull, and force it to open up. And most of the time it doesn’t. But then, without even asking, you find the other container, the one that opens without struggle. Often, God has that other container ready for us, but in our impatience and frustrations, we never even look for it.

Bad days are good. Crying is good. Kicking the kitchen cabinets is good. Screaming at a knife that just won’t cut through a sweet potato is good. There is no real bad day, there is only the emotion of letting the bad day get the better of you. Because, lets face it, bad days happen so that tomorrow can be a good day.

The word says in Psalms that “Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes in the morning.” As night fell on my bad day I was still banging around in frustration over the things that had made it bad. I was happy to wallow. As I tried to focus on cooking dinner, my husband entered and asked if I needed help. 

What you may not know is that since Nathan has gotten a full-time job in Dallas I have tried to become a really awesome, self-sufficient, superwoman. Now, my drive to do so (and be pregnant at the same time), resulted in me getting a minor electrical shock and a major scolding from my doctor. So when Nathan asked, “Do you need some help?” as much as I wanted to say no, I needed it ever so badly. And saying yes was all I needed to realize that God was standing there too, asking if He could help me.

A lot of times in our drive to succeed at life’s everyday challenges, to achieve that balancing act between sanity and chaos, or to win the little battles, we forget that the word says “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?” There is God, standing in your kitchen as you gripe about the work situation that makes you want to puke, or the injustice you encountered on a daily errand, or the incredible idiot that you are for allowing yourself to make that mistake, and all he wants to do is hand you that other honey mustard container. 

Last night I took it, opened it up, and saw the answer to what I was looking for, easily accessed and completely compassionate, enclosed. At the end of a bad day I chose to see good. I chose to pet my puppy. I chose to hug my husband with relief. I chose to not see the many hurdles ahead, but see the source of my energy to jump them. And this morning joy definitely came. At 6:30 am my niece Lily was born, bright, beautiful, and surrounded by hope.  And the weeping of yesterday? Pale in comparison to the joy of the morning.