Sometimes You’re the Bug.
Yesterday was an amazing day with visits and coffee with friends, a sunny afternoon with pups in the backyard, supper with my family, presents both thoughtfully selected and creatively homemade. I am one blessed woman. I loved turning another year older.
Today I got kids off to school, put a load of laundry in, got chicken in the crock pot and realized I couldn’t do it. I postponed two appointments with important people and crawled under a blanket and took a nap. I was that smooshed bug on the windshield of life who, even though her heart wanted to, her body and mind said ‘nope’.
I’ve become a very firm believer that to every bad side there’s a good, and of course, vice versa. For most everything in life there’s two sides… the bitter and the sweet. I’ve wrestled with this for ages ~ and at my age I can actually say that and sound sorta like I have ~ because so many times we want purejoy experiences. We want it to be all about the good feels and nothing to do with the way too often rotten side of living in a world that’s not only less than perfect, but undeniably fallen from the way the world was intended by our Creator.
Purejoy comes in moments that we have to catch between all the bittersweet. One of my favorite people from way back when named Paul wrote this to a bunch of people in Rome who struggled with their circumstances in light of the world that they lived..
And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.
He was basically saying, “C’mon peeps, you know this. Our reality changes because God’s in it with us. Look for the Purejoy moments because you know that you know that God doesn’t do you that way.”
So what does that have to do with having excellent and crawl-under-a-blanket days? Well… for me, it’s learning to accept that God is in them both. That one is not afflicted on me because God’s forgotten how hard I work for Him and my family, and the other is just the other.
Nope. I have to believe that God plants purejoy even in the crawl-under-a-blanket days. I don’t have to like it, but I must recognize that if I believe God’s under the blanket with me, then the joy I feel when all is right in the world is still there when it’s dark and tunnelish. And we’re worn and can’t enjoy the sunny day.
And the key may be finding out what He is purposing in my life by inserting the crawl-under-a-blanket days into the middle of what I think I want for myself. Part of it is figuring out how He’s working it together on the days I’m the bug.
Peace y’all.