It’s one of those days.
One of those days when “need to” clashes violently with “don’t feel like it,” and “want to” is not at all the same as “have to.” When my spirit feels weighed down and lethargic. When tears press behind my eyes, and the only thing restraining them is the keen awareness that I don’t have any real reason to feel as badly as I do.
It’s one of those mornings when a few little things have been enough to saturate my mood with negativity. When a mouthy child turns my heart sour and the cold wind pierces something deeper within me than just my flesh.
It’s just one of those days, and it’s made worse by the fact that more than anything else in this world, I want to shine. I want to be bright and merry and joyous, not for my sake and to guarantee having a better day but because I simply want to point to Christ in all I say and do. That’s what I really want.
On a day like this, I want to be able to come to you, my friends and readers, with encouraging words. I want to start this post with all the reasons I’m feeling badly and end it with all the reasons I have to praise, calling you out of your own bad day and into a full experience of all that God is really doing with you. I want to be like the psalmists who, in the span of a breath, turn from woeful cries to ecstatic shouts. I want to be like that because I feel like that’s what God has equipped me to do and that’s what you have all come to expect from me. On days like this, though, the truth is that I just don’t have it in me.
On days like this, though, I have to turn and be grateful. I have to rejoice in the messed-upness of how I’m feeling, because the truth is that on days like this, I probably show Christ to the world more than any other.
It’s days like this when I can say, “See? I’m a big ugly mess. Anything good that comes from these lips or these fingers or this life is not from me. If you see anything good here, you’re not seeing me. You’re seeing the One who redeems me. You’re seeing the One who chooses to take this mess and daily make something more of it.”
So friends, even though I feel like this is probably one of the least profound things I have ever written, I am going to post this for you. I don’t know how it will be received. I don’t know if anyone will like it. Someone out there may need to see my glaring imperfections, though, and may need to see how the love and grace of Christ can do something with even those.
Here I am. I’m always messy, but on days like this I’m really messy. If you see anything good here, it’s all Christ. He’s not finished with me, and in the end, it’s all going to be good. And the really ironic thing is this: in shining a light on my flaws and redirecting all attention to the goodness of Christ, my day is already starting to look up.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hx5Y9DhoLJQ?rel=0]
2 Cor 1:3-5 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 5 For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.
Reading this now, after having read your most recent post, I can see how Christ is bringing you through. Our sufferings have a purpose, as you have stated, and God will have His purpose through our pain. Press on, persevere, be blessed.