Romans 9:1-12:21
6 In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. 7 If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. 8 If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly. Romans 12:6-7
My friends, I have had a rough morning this morning. I mentioned to you last week to be expecting a time management post soon, well here it is and it’s nothing like I was expecting it to be! God had other plans for me today.
First of all, I had a REALLY hard time even waking up! I had this really weird dream that put me in a sour mood. By the time I finally was able to drag myself from the bed it was an hour later than I had expected to get up. MY plan had been to get up at 5, leisurely brew my coffee, fill out my covey model to do list, read my Bible, write my post, and then greet my family with a warm alert smile as they joined me in the land of the living. What actually happened was that I ended up being the last one out of bed, looking like the walking dead! I’m pretty sure I sounded like it too!
As I shuffled around the house feeling like my body parts were made of lead and not flesh the rest of the family moved around a little lethargically too. As we waved good-bye to Daddy from the living room window Gabe looked at the clock and said, “OH SHOOT!” He had exactly one minute to get his sweatshirt and backpack on, run two blocks down the street and get on the bus. He didn’t make it.
So now – because we know that this day had nothing to do with anyone else and everything to do about dear sweet little ole me, not only was I already an hour behind on MY schedule but with my son missing the bus I was going to be even further behind schedule because now I was going to have to drive him to school. Fabulous! Yet I didn’t give up my hope for a productive day, not yet anyway. That happened when my daughter missed her bus too!
So now my morning plans have been completely wrecked. (Keep in mind here, we live two minutes from both of their schools, literally TWO minutes.) Mommy, turned Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street, grumbled as both children appologized most sweetly for missing their busses. I dropped them both off at school and decided that since MY schedule had already been thrown out the window I might as well keep going with it. I had planned on spending my morning working on homework and writing, BUT since I was out and about already I might as well stop by the local IGA and do the grocery shopping I had planned on doing this afternoon after school. As I got out of the car and scannd their ads on the side of the building I smacked my right hand on my rear view mirror – HARD. And if that hadn’t been enough there were other people in the parking lot that witnessed my pain and embarassment. siiiighhh… the day continues. However, many of the ingredients I needed were on sale so that’s good right? When I went to pick up the chicken that was on sale I got chicken juice all over my hands, ew ew ew ew ew ew ew EW!!!!!!! As I was leaving the check out the cashier thought she saw my paper bag ripping, turns out it wasn’t, but by the time I carried it to the car, it did. I just barely got it to the passenger’s seat before the handle completely gave way. When I got home and opened the passenger side door my purse fell out of the car and into the mud in the driveway – AWESOME!!! I brushed it off, put it over my shoulder trying to ignore the fact that I was probably getting my coat all dirty too. I loaded my arms back up with grocery bags, took two steps towards the front door and dropped my keys in the mud. “ACK!!!!! SERIOUSLY LORD!?!”
Some days just DON’T go the way you planned them. And you know what, that’s OK. Because “this is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!” No, it didn’t go at all the way that I had planned, it went better than I had planned. I got an obviously needed extra hour of sleep, I got to spend an extra twenty minutes with both my dear sweet children, who were perfectly lovely this morning despite having a grumpy zombie mommy. I got to drive them to school, probably keeping them from hearing/doing naughty things on the bus. I got my shopping done, including buying party supplies that I hope I get to use at school today as a reward for some great test grades. Not only did I get a week’s worth of groceries this morning in record time I got them on sale and from friends. And then, after I got back home and was text venting about my morning to my husband, I got to spend a little extra time with him making me laugh this morning in order to cheer me up. And then, because God is this kind of good, He pointed out to me all these good things that He had given to me this morning according to HIS plans that I would have missed if I had followed MY plan. And by pointing all these things out, He also gave me something to write about for my time management post. Which is a really good thing too because I had really been drawing a blank on what it was going to say!
All too often we make plans and then get frustrated and upset when they go awry. We shouldn’t. What’s the point of getting angry about something you have no control over? Will I try again tomorrow to have that ideal morning with the coffee steam swirling and the heavens singing that morning song that plays in commercials where there are happy morning people greeting each other with their coffee that’s good to the last drop? Sure! I try for that morning every day! But somedays, God has something better planned and I need be able to accept that His better might just look like my “worse”, but that doesn’t mean that it is worse. Sometimes my “worse” is really for my “best”!
“For in all things, God works for the good of those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:28
Tamar Knochel 