Today was a hard kind of day. The kind of day you hope doesn’t come around too often, but when it does, it hits you where it hurts. It wasn’t a bad day like “I feel like the whole world is crashing in” or a bad day when something horrible happens. It was a day filled with lots of small things piling on top of one another.
Things like a bad chain reaction that leads to an ugly cry early in the morning (I sneezed, wet myself—a charming side effect of my pregnancy so far--and spilled Oliver’s water bowl all at once). Things like the server in your classroom crashing as your students are working on a tight deadline to finish research papers. Things like finding your water bottles for the day frozen solid, because of course you left them in the car on Tuesday. Things like spilling hot chocolate all down yourself in the middle of class. Things like pulling lesson plans for speech class out of your backside at the last possible second because the server is still broken. Things like finding a favorite shoe that has been partially chewed. Things that normally wouldn’t be a big deal, but because you are so tired, so worn out, and so frenzied, they become a big deal.
But then there are the other things. The moments of clarity. The moments of grace. The moments where your husband picks you up off the kitchen floor and brings you back to bed for family snuggle time (Mommy, Daddy, Ollie, and Baby) to help you calm down and relax. The moments where you figure out a Plan B for the messed up classes. The day spent making students laugh as you try to figure out how to drink the melting drops of water. The moment after you spill the hot chocolate where your sweet class takes a sharp breath in as they try to figure out how to respond (with laughter, of course—it was best for them and for me). The moments where the culprit responsible for the chewed shoe drops into your lap with his favorite toy and snuggles up so sweetly that you forgive the shoe error.
These are the moments I want to focus on in life. The moments of God’s common grace. The moments when I realize that Jesus’ promises ring true. His yoke is easy, his burden is light. So many problems do not seem easy, and are in fact far from light. But through faith, we can know that we will overcome this world. God pours grace out into our lives each and every day. I want to be the type of person who recognizes that grace, the type of person who is thankful for that grace. Not the person who dreads the day and remembers the bad stuff. I want to remember that God is with me always, and that each moment is a gift—whether I treat it like one or not.
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and all that is within me,
bless his holy name!
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.
Psalm 103:1-5
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