Some days are just hard.  Some weeks are hard.  Today is a hard day, capping off a week of hard days.  A week of a hurting neck and back, a sliced finger, a perpetually “off” stomach, a forgetting of my parents’ anniversary (something I have never done and which I didn’t realize until 3 days late), and really poor sleep.  And today, bad attitudes abound, I am exhausted and, for some reason, just want to cry (which, I guess isn’t such a big deal since I cry at everything these days).  I know it is all nothing earth-shattering, but I sometimes think I could handle earth-shattering better than the straws that break the camel’s back.

But I didn’t start writing to complain.  I really didn’t.  What I wanted to say is that these past few days, I have felt God challenging me to see things differently – to realize that bad days happen, yet even so, an eternity of joy and peace and rest is secure for me.  I sometimes feel like I need to find a way to make the “good” aspects of a day outweigh the “bad”, when the reality is that trying to build a case for contentment or thankfulness out of the temporal things of life, whether good or bad, shifts my perspective off eternity.  But when I can see that none of this stuff changes the finished work of the Cross, I can learn to rest in the constancy and truth of God’s sovereignty and promise to work everything for good in my life.  He’s not thrown off by my bad days – so I shouldn’t be thrown off either.

And in learning to accept that the bad stuff won’t be my undoing, it is easier to then take the good for what it is – good things, blessings, that I can be grateful for without first stacking them up against the bad to see which outweighs the other.  So, on that note, some of the good things from this week…

…the discovery of pumpkin and tomato plants growing in our compost, which is particularly happy for me since the tomatoes plants are almost as big as I would be able to buy at the local nursery, so if my tomatoes from seed fail, I shouldn’t be left tomato-less…which I’m sure God knows would make me really disappointed.

…curriculum decisions made and materials ordered.  A big relief.

…the three day weekend ahead, and Tim’s birthday next week.

…the motivation to make a [small] dent in weeding the garden, even in spite of my sore neck and back.

…my husband (as always) who has taken over dish duty until my sliced thumb is healed enough to take over again.

…open windows and fresh air.

…pretty weeds that are nicely suited for warm-weather bouquets.

…children who are slowly starting to show signs of compassion and thoughtfulness, which I can only attribute to God’s grace, since they would be hard-pressed to learn such things from me.

…a growing baby who is making his/her presence known more and more these days.

All good things that require no comparisons to be deemed good.  I’m slowly learning.