I had a really bad day today.
Everything that could go wrong, did. And even when something
went right, I was so overwhelmed that I couldn’t even enjoy my small victory,
because I was drowning in the horribleness of the day. I smiled when all I
really wanted and felt I could do was cry, and a couple of times, the
super-fake everything-is-okay mask that everyone could see through anyways slipped,
and I did cry. At breakfast. In the hallway. In the bathroom. On the basketball
court. In a couple of other places I don’t want to talk about.
It was a really bad day.
I want to tell you that in the midst of this miserable
experience I had some life-changing moment with God, that He lifted me up and I
rose from my ashy sorrow like the phoenix of legend. That the transformative
power of God redeemed my day and I was able to lead 16 people to Christ and
start a church plant. That my tears turned to joy and I gave a small child a
puppy.
In all sincerity, I would be lying if I told you that. If
you couldn’t tell from the puppy.
Time to make my point: I didn’t have an alleluia-chorus
moment where God spoke to me and dragged me out of my bad day and away from the
daily demands of my life today. I didn’t even feel particularly spiritual
today, because I was so busy trying to survive the awfulness of the day.
However, I can tell you what I realized at one point, when I was feeling guilty about even having a bad day:
Sometimes, I think we get so wrapped up in our little
Christianity world, we feel like we’re not allowed-or even in some cases,
above-bad things. That misery shouldn’t touch us, because we’re Christians. That we shouldn’t hurt, because we have
Jesus. Bad things, stay away, I rebuke you in the Name of Jesus!
In some ways, that’s true. You can rebuke bad things. You
can pray that they won’t touch you, and maybe God will honor that prayer. I don’t
know; I am neither a theologian nor a
pastor. I’m just a girl who loves Jesus in Mexico (and anywhere else He
sends me; I’m not really picky).
But my answer to that is to look at Jesus in the Bible. Look
at where he placed himself. He didn’t really hang out with rich people by
choice-he kind of scorned them. Jesus spent his time with poor people. The
sick, the old, the dredges of society. He didn’t get out of the way of hurting
people; he went to them gladly. He said “It’s not the healthy who need a
doctor, it’s the sick.” (Mr. 2:7) The bible prophetically calls Jesus “a man of
sorrows” (Is. 53:3) and sometimes I wonder, were they his sorrows, or the
sorrows of others weighing on him?
So yeah, today was a rough day. They happen. It wasn’t a fun
day, and I wish it was over. However, I can tell you that though my entire horrible,
terrible, no-good, very bad day experience Jesus never left me alone. Even in
the midst of the bad day-ness of it all, he was with me. And that’s something I
can take out of this: that I have a God who holds my hand during bad days.
Figuratively speaking, of course.
All this may seem
anti-climatic, given my blather about proverbial phoenixes raising from their
ashes, but in my experience, the anti-climatic stuff seems to be the most
important. I say this sadly, what with my personal love for hyperbole and
mostly fictional drama. Still, the fact that I managed to dig something good
out of this wreck of a day has me pretty proud. And take it from me, people: If
you see a bad day looming on the horizon and physically CAN’T do anything to
avoid it (such as, rent a boat and sail to Japan, buy a pair of track shoes and
start running, or lift a car off a busy suburban street and make a break for
the nearest Starbucks) I recommend just tossing your hands up early in the day
and saying, “I give up! Jesus, you take this day, because obviously it’s not
going to be a good one and I don’t want to be responsible for my own life
today!”
Actually, I suggest doing something like that every day. It
will revolutionize your life.
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