I don’t know why some days just are wild and wacky and other days are ho-hum and kind of blah. Today was more than wacky and just plain wild. The Bible says that each day belongs to the Lord and I often sing the familiar verse to the familiar tune:

♪ ♫This is the day, This is the day, that the Lord hath made, that the Lord hath made. I will rejoice, I will rejoice and be glad in it, and be glad in it… ♪ ♫

Tonight I want to sing, “This is a bad day, This is a bad day…”

An Emergency to Remember

But wow, today was just really confusing and worrisome to me as a mother. Dos, our 6 year old, was doing his school work at our kitchen table and with this wiggly bottom that does not usually ever (and I mean ever) stay still, knocked our bench over. He fell to the ground suddenly and began crying very loudly. Most kids like to wail and then they’re fine, I casually waited for him to stop but as he continued with the loud outcry my mothering radar went off and I went to investigate the injury. Boy was it an injury! His two fingers, “tall man” and “ring man,” on his left hand were busted wide open like a squished grape. The bench had fallen on top of his fingers, making them split.

I grabbed a kitchen towel, and began to apply pressure. By then all the other kids began to gravitate toward him to figure out what all the commotion was about. I knew as soon as I saw his fingers that he was going to need stitches. Calling my husband, who was at staff lunch with the other men at church, I was relieved to hear his voice pick up the phone. He immediately made preparations to abandon his lunch date and come to our rescue.

Somehow Dos and I shimmied over to the counter so I could get some Ibuprofen down him, knowing that he would need it in his system if he was going to be getting stitches. We acquired flip flops for him and a jacket, then all loaded up in the van to wait for my husband to arrive. Dos insisted that I go with him, so we buckled up in the front seat. We now have a hospital within 3 minutes from our home, so we hoped we could get him in fast and out before our Lord’s Supper Service tonight.

Husband arrived with a first aid kit at the church and left his lunch behind in the car when he valiantly escorted us to the ER parking lot. Dos was desperately hoping that I could go with him, but with 3 other kids, I just could not bring them in with us. Papa (husband) went with him and was the brave parent. Several times I had cried throughout the ordeal, just because I knew there was nothing I could do for him. So I went home and fed the other kids the lunch I had been preparing when he knocked over the bench. Then, the wait began…

I was just sick to my stomach. Our girls took a nap and thankfully Uno distracted me with the board game “Trouble.” It’s kind of a funny thought that Trouble distracted me from trouble. We prayed and I wondered and waited… and waited… and waited… Little texts here and there from Husband did not make me any more at ease.

Impatience is my un-virtue. I have these inner time clocks and when things are not getting completed by the inner time clock then my wiring starts acting up and stress begins to build. I look at the clock when I know my husband is going to be home and if he’s late I start feeling it and wondering and regularly checking the time. I will wait and wait until finally I break out my phone and call and 9 times out of 10, he’s driving in our neighborhood about to pull into the driveway. My patience just does not wait long enough.

My inner time clock was going crazy today! Dos was in the ER before 1:00 pm and did not get out until 6 pm. 5+ hours for an x-ray and 7 stitches!? I’m so glad I gave him the Ibuprofen before he left the house. I just wish that I had sent him with a snack.

We ran to Subway after leaving the hospital and grabbed some grub, then flew to church and made it around 6:30 pm in time for my husband to change clothes and do lightning speed preparations for our music for the Lord’s Supper service at 7:00 pm. But that’s not all…

The Lord’s Supper Service

I sat down in the church chairs wiped out from the roller coaster of today’s event and tried to keep Tres and Cuatro (our girls) quiet during the entire service. I sat there and just told God, “this is me, today, I don’t know what to think, say, or do.” Thankfully I had taken some time in the prior days to make the soul-searching evaluations of my heart and prepare for the solemn occasion of commemorating the Lord’s death at our service. I just was not able to plug in and feel apart of the service tonight. People were crying because they were whole-heartedly taking in the songs and viewing Christ’s death as a personal responsibility. The only personal responsibility I was feeling was keeping the kids quiet enough for everyone else to be able to focus.

I became the referee between children and the sticker queen with Hello Kitty stickers stuck to my jacket. Try to explain to a preschooler and a toddler why they can’t have a “cracker” and some juice in a cute tiny cup. I failed to bring a small snack again this year, I wonder why!? HA! I have to admit that I felt a little better when another child started crying across the auditorium from us until Cuatro recognized it and loudly said, “Baby!”

A lady in our church talked to me on the phone this morning and just encouraged me not to worry if our girls were a little disruptive in the service tonight, but to take a deep breath and just take it as a thing that the Lord allowed to happen. Her advice helped me tonight to feel some calm inside and just allow the little ones to be their age while training them to be quiet.

A Godly Conclusion

God uses these types of days to bring home the reality that we do not know what a day may bring forth. Our pastor mentions this quote regularly, “If you don’t have something to be thankful for, be thankful for the things you don’t have.” Today I realize that there are parents waiting long hours for their children to come out of major surgery, while I was waiting on 7 stitches. I realize that some people wait for their loved ones to come home, and they never will return because of tragic events happen in their day. My trial is mild in comparison to so many long term diseases or even the long term waiting on a Prodigal child to return home. I am thankful for a husband that is dedicated to love and care for our family not just in the crises, but daily. There is plenty to be thankful for even on a day like today.

Maybe the lessons I taught my children were to care for an injury, to pray over and over even within a day over the needs of a loved one. Maybe in time they will learn that their faithfulness is important to God because we all have church days where we are present but we just cannot be plugged in for some reason. I do not know what timing and reasons there were for this incident for today. Will it make me stronger for another situation in the future? Only God knows everything I can learn from a day like today, and I pray my heart is open to Him teaching me He is our very  present help in trouble.

Psalm 46:1 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

God is good to help us realize that each day belongs to Him and we truly can sing the song, “This is the Day,” with a firm belief that this day, no matter how it is, is His day for His purposes in our life.