You see, I knew it was going to happen. Last night was all but sleepless for me. I was working late and so I got to bed at an hour that I can claim with theological certainty was ungodly. I decided to snuggle with Derek so as not to wake Careen coming to bed in the middle of the night. Derek enjoys those cuddle nights. But last night he was either hot or having nightmares or just going random. I curled up next to him when all of a sudden...kick. Kick...kick. Kick-kick-kick-kick-kick-kick-kick! I suspect he was trying to kick the blankets off and found my back a more reachable target. Then just when I had gotten to sleep he flipped over, dangling an arm out in the process. WHACK! I got his forearm right across the bridge of my nose. That was it. Ungodly hour or no, I was sleeping in my own bed.
So I shuffled off to the bedroom and curled up. It seemed like all of six minutes later when Ali started screaming. I don't know what it was about. Careen was already up at that point and she was handling whatever crisis was unfolding. Ali is good-natured about 98% of the time...smiling, happy, curious, giggling. She makes up for it in the other 2%. Her amp, as they say, goes all the way up to 11. And she was in rare form this morning, shortly after the hour of ungodly. At least two and a half times I got woken up out of sound sleep by my 1-year-old daughter melting down over markers or Cheerios or something.
But then finally...Ali got better. Sigh. There wasn't much time left for sleep but at least I could get a littl...RING! RING RING RING RING RING! Ok, fine. So this is the morning when everybody else is up at the crack of dawn and decides to call the church phone. It's now cellular, you know. I can be reached any time of day or night. RING RING RING! Four phone calls in 40 minutes from wonderful, well-meaning people who...you know...ACTUALLY SLEPT LAST NIGHT.
Well, by that time morning was truly upon us so I gave up and got up. I had a full day. Study, plan, write a little stuff about evangelism, visit, work out running on the treadmill at lunch, visit, plan more, stop by the grocery store, cook dinner. "Hi Derek! Yeah, I'm sorry I haven't seen you all day. I promise I'll play with you after dinner." Eat. Play, play, play. Finally! Kids in bed! Now I only have three things left to do. I need to write something for my Blazers blog, write something for this blog, and do my evening workout. I think I'll cheat on the Blazers blog part...just ask a short question for people to respond to and let them do most of the talking. I'm tired and I don't think I have the energy to...RING!
"Hello?" It's my co-writer Ben from the Blazers blog. "Hey, what's up, Ben? Oh! Oh, they did! Well that's cool. Thanks for letting me know. Bye!" Hey, guess what? After more than a year without a top executive and the team being run by committee the Trail Blazers just hired a new General Manager. It was a shocking move because they stole him away from another team unexpectedly. It's easily the biggest news story of the summer so far and one of the top three of the season.
Sigh.
So...here comes an hour of researching this guy's background, detailing every move he made in the draft, in trade, or signing free agents with that other team. Then there's writing about it. 1677 words. My blog counts for me. And none of this will wait. The news is breaking NOW.
Then finally I'm done. Only two things left to go, one of which you are reading now.
But this post isn't meant to be self-indulgent. There's a point here. Your faith is only worth what you show on your worst, hardest days. All of us have days like this. From the earliest early-morning when I wanted to stuff a sock in my daughter's mouth...to being polite to everyone calling on the phone...to fulfilling my duties well despite fatigue...to dealing with the unexpected and unavoidable, today has been a challenge. I've had to consciously remind myself every step of the way to do it right. I've kept myself in check, trying hard not to snap at people, get aggravated with my children, or just throw up my hands and give up. I don't always succeed in this, but today I did pretty well. But I only did well because I made a conscious effort to put my faith first, even on days like this. Had I not put that safeguard in place and paid attention, boy...would this have be a day. What happened to Pastor Dave? He's usually so nice!
I'm reminded of two things:
- It's always a battle to hold onto the tenets we hold sacred, especially when circumstances threaten to overwhelm them. How easy it would be to glare at the grocery store checker today, make rude gestures at people driving beside me, curse the world under my breath. But that would be letting circumstance win. Faith is stronger, even when it doesn't feel like it. I don't keep myself in check on days like this because I'm a great person. I keep myself in check because I believe and I put my trust in that belief. I will demonstrate to the people of this world that they are important, beautiful, and loved even when they call me at 6:55 a.m. on the church phone for a non-emergency.
- I don't always succeed in holding faith highest. I can't lie about that. I, too, succumb. For every day like this where I feel fairly proud of myself I have another where I get to the end of the day and go, "Oops!" This is why we need God's forgiveness. This also puts a check on thinking that we're "good people". We are...kind of. But there will be days. How easy it is, when judging ourselves, to conveniently skip over days like this, to skip over our momentary-yet-frequent failures. How easy it is to judge ourselves only by our best moments while simultaneously judging everyone else by their worst! We all have good and bad days. We all need forgiveness, strength, help. Fortunately we get all three from God. But we should remember days like this that we might better thank and credit him instead of relying so much on our own sanctity which, in most of our cases, is about six hours of lost sleep away from disappearing entirely.
Well, just as soon as that evening workout is done.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
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