So, yesterday morning felt like what I call a “dog day” morning; it felt as if every single hour was really seven or eight hours instead. The day started with our dog refusing to go outside and “do her business” at 5:30 am because it was raining; and it then proceeded with our daughter trying to refuse to go to school and do her business also because it was a dark, wet day. And, if their mutiny wasn’t enough to test my resolve, the dentist chair experience most certainly was. I went yesterday morning for what was supposed to be a 30-40 minute, relatively painless procedure, but I ended up going through a more than 2-hour ordeal involving much pain and discomfort (and the issue I went there for still isn’t even fixed). Yes, it was one of those days. Oh, and I almost forget to mention the fact that I went into ugly cry mode right in the middle of the dentist office, which I don’t think I’ve done since I was in elementary school (my daughter’s age). Wow, it seems a little early to be in a second childhood already, but I am known for not following patterns all that well.
Because it was one of those days, I decided I needed a “do-over.” When I got home from the dentist, I made tea and toast, which is exactly how I like to start my day when I have time to spare. So I did it, even though I felt as if I had no time to spare at all; I was, after all, a few hours off schedule due to dog, daughter, and dentist. (Needless to say, “d” is not my favorite letter right now.) I’m starting to learn that it’s okay to start over–in fact, sometimes it’s a really good thing to do. I think that might be one of the reasons God tells us that he, in a very real sense, starts over with us every day–he doesn’t need to but he knows that we do. He knows how hard life is down here, and he knows what a mess we can be. God tells us too that we have a high priest who knows and feels every painful thing that we do, no matter how big or small. If the pain in our life is real and big to us, then it’s real and big to God. No, he’s not the type of judge that any of us is–He’s perfect in every way. He’s all that we’ve ever dared to hope for or dream of in a friend or a lover, in a confidant or a counselor, in a mother or a father, in a sister or a brother, in a husband or a wife.
As I sipped my Darjeeling tea (a type I’ve somehow only recently discovered) yesterday morning, I realized one great thing about a “dog day;” the challenging parts of it aren’t the only ones that seem to last a really long time. It felt like I’d been sipping my hot tea for hours, yet it was only lunchtime when I looked at the clock. So, I’ll just call this realization a lovely silver lining on a cloudy and rainy Monday. But, the story of my dog day Monday doesn’t exactly stop there. Just when I thought the day had totally turned around for the “good,” I returned home with my little girl late afternoon only to realize that our anti-rain dog had, for the very first time since we adopted her from a shelter last fall, found her way into a garbage bag in the kitchen; and the dog, Cupcake’s her name, had very thoroughly dissected the disgusting contents of that bag all over our kitchen floor. And no, the irony of my having called the day a “dog day” did not escape me at all; in fact, it actually made me smile a little (but only a little and after I had cleaned up the stinking mess in my kitchen). Oh, well…let’s just say I’m trusting that God also completely understands how I felt about that canine creature of his upon seeing such a mess just after having such a morning. Thank God for new days!
FYI: My husband very kindly took responsibility for the garbage part of the day since he had forgotten to take out the trash the night before; since I was the one who had to clean up the mess though, his doing so wasn’t all that impactful.
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