Saturday and Sunday, April 18 & 19th, 2009

I received this from a friend who is a reader of Triumphant Victorious Reminders. I wanted to share with you this weekend, what was shared with me. Very encouraging!

Love in Christ...Teresa

Bad Day - Joyful Morning!
by Rebekah Faubion

"Bad Day. Joyful Morning!

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, and then perhaps you miss that because it is cloudy. A day where moments seem harsh and strange events cause changes in one's self made 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, 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 futilely 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 to prepare us for days that will be more difficult.

In my defeat, I continued. 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, this one opened easily. Most of the time life feels like that first container. You tug, pull, and try to force things to open up. Most of the time, in the midst of our strivings we are left with: "Well, that did not work out!" 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, frustrations, self-pity and defeatism, we never even look for the blessing that was waiting for our receiving.
Bad days are good. Crying is good. Kicking the kitchen cabinets sometimes can be good.

Screaming at a knife that just won't cut through a sweet potato can be so satisfying! There is really no such animal as a bad day! What really exists is only the emotion of letting the bad day get the better of you. Because, let's face the truth, a bad day happens so we can choose and have hope that tomorrow can be a good day.

The Psalmist said, "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. The honey mustard, my little dog Samson swallowing wisteria (which can poisonous), family stresses (praying for my brothers), Dad sharing with me a situation. I became happy to wallow!
As I tried to focus on cooking dinner, my husband, Nathan, entered and asked if I needed help. Nathan, the gifted, blessed husband and father to be! Nathan was honored for his hard work in college by getting an incredible full-time job in Dallas . Since that time, I have tried to become a really awesome, self-sufficient, super-woman. Now, my drive to do so (and be pregnant at the same time) resulted in another crisis. I went to change the light bulb and received 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 immediately yelled "YES!"
By humbling myself and saying that I could not do everything and exclaiming that I needed help ever so badly created a freeing, liberating moment. My husband's love expression and acknowledgment of my need opened my eyes and made me realize that God, my Lord, was standing there too, asking if He could help me.

A lot of times in our drive to succeed at life's everyday challenges and achieve that balancing act between sanity and chaos, and in our attempts to win even the little battles, we forget that the Word says, "The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?" There is a God! His Spirit is standing in your kitchen as you gripe about the work situation that makes you want to gag, 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 made a choice 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 that I tripped over throughout the day. I refused to look at the difficult race ahead. I just chose to see, receive, and embrace the SOURCE of my energy! This gave me the ability to rest and watch!

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---well, that paled in comparison to the joy of the morning!"

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