Category: This and That

This is the Bad Day

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.

Christmas Character Series: Gratefulness

Christmas Character - Gratefulness

Gratefulness is, “making known to God and others in what ways they have benefited my life.”*

The antonym of gratefulness is Unthankfulness.*

With Thanksgiving now behind us, we should not release ourselves from the idea that we can get by without expressing thanks to people for not only the things they give, but for what they represent or do for us.

I am learning more and more that people are more important than things. Things are useful, but they are not eternal. To treat a person as an object, easily pushed aside, or of little value could damage their view of God or douse water on their zeal for the Lord.

What Gratefulness is: Investment

Expressing gratefulness to those that benefit your life is like putting money into a piggy bank. The popular author, John Maxwell, often refers to leaders as having an amount of change that they carry with them. When they mess up then it costs them some of their change. If they continue to have character issues and misuse or mistreat those that they lead then when problems happen they use their change until it is no longer available for use when they need it.

So as our gratitude or lack thereof either puts money into our piggy bank or extracts it. When we make mistakes or wrong choices we pay for them. It costs us something. We need to have invested enough gratefulness to others for how they have helped us in our lives so that when we do mess up, it can easily be forgiven. If we have been continually unthankful, then in time respect is lost and many times the generosity once extended is stopped.

We prevent people from begrudging their resources of time, treasure, and talent by gratefulness.

Practical ways we can demonstrate our gratefulness toward others at Christmas

  1. By giving a host/hostess a gift for having you into their home.
  2. By picking up the plate of the person who made the meal and offering to do the dishes.
  3. Clean up after yourself and show your gratefulness even to your spouse, siblings, or other family members. Show them you are grateful for them by not being sloppy and expecting them to clean up after you.
  4. By writing a note of thanks in a Christmas card. It’s my personal belief that you should write something meaningful in every card you send as a lasting memory to that person, for you never know if it will be your last time to express your love and thanks.
  5. By leaving a good tip for your waiter/waitress, hotel attendant, or hairstylist. Let them know in that moment specifically how that they have made your life better.
  6. Take 10 minutes to talk to a friend or family member and give them a real heart-to-heart expression of their meaning to you.
  7. Kiss your spouse and tell them 3 ways they have brought joy and love to your life.
  8. Give your pastor an expression of your love for his time and effort of preaching God’s Word to you each church service.
  9. Leave a note for your children beside their bed or in a Christmas gift.
  10. By pitching in and doing your part, no matter what it is. Love demonstrated to you should be rewarded by your loyalty and generosity of demonstrating love in return. How many people have taken advantage of their loved ones by being lazy in their relationships and not showing a debt of gratitude.
  11. Show your debt of gratitude toward God by sharing the gospel. Christ paid a debt that we could not pay, we are debtors to each person that does not know Him as their Saviour.
  12. Making cookies for the neighbors that water your lawn when you go on vacation, the babysitter that loves and cares for your children, etc.
  13. Placing your hand on someone’s shoulder and telling them you are thankful for their service… a serviceman, veteran, or volunteer in your church or community.
  14. By taking a picture of a gift given to you or your children of you using the gift and e-mailing it or sending it to them. It shows you truly are grateful for something they gave and how you are using it.
  15. Expressing your gratefulness aloud. Telling others how someone else benefits you spreads love and gratefulness all around, especially within the earshot of the person that you’re bragging on.

What Unthankfulness Does

Unthankfulness does its own series of hurt and damage to the heart of the giver. Unthankfulness is a discouragement. It builds walls between people and hardens hearts.  It is like the 9 healed lepers in the story of Luke 17 that received the benefits of Christ’s healing but never stopped to say thank you. Only one leper had the faith to turn around, thank Christ, and worship at His feet for the gift of healing. Jesus said to him, “…thy faith hath made thee whole.” It seems like gratefulness in this story was correlated to this healed leper’s faith.

I can think of many times when I did not extend gratefulness and how it created a breach in some of the relationships that I had with my family members or acquaintances. There are times when you can alter a relationship forever by not giving a true expression of thanks. Gratefulness needs to be expressed in word, action, or writing. If you are willing to sacrifice your relationships for selfishness, then you will lose and be lonely in the end.

Evaluate

To the Unthankful:

  • Have you used up all your change because you have not invested in gratefulness?
  • Do you have any people in your life that have begun to build a wall up between you because you consistently choose to be unthankful for their gifts and their sacrifices for you?
  • Does laziness show an unthankful heart toward anyone in your life?
  • Does a lack of unthankfulness show your faith is stunted like the 9 unthankful lepers?

To help you demonstrate Gratefulness:

  • Which friend will you call and have a heart-to-heart with?
  • Is there anyone you need to write a thank you note to?
  • Who will you surprise by letting them know specifically how they have benefited you?
  • How will you show your debt of love toward the Saviour for His salvation?

And now for one of my all time favorite quotes about gratitude/gratefulness:

Gratitude is the heart’s memory.

If the heart remembers the good, then it is grateful!

Other articles in this series:

*All of the Character definitions come from the Character Qualities Sheet that can be found on SolveFamilyProblems.org.