One of Those Days

Monday was a one of “those days.” Report card crunch time pulled me out of my three’s class to figure out how in the world I would finish my kindergarten assessments by the end of the week. During morning snack time, four of my nine kiddos decided to knock over their full cups of milk. At separate times. Onto the floor. And as the last one was bringing the culprit of a cup over to the garbage, she dropped it, depositing the remaining eighth of an inch of milk onto, and into, my shoe. For some unfathomable reason, I had chosen to have my students paint, so clean-up took extra-long, and I only had about 15 minutes to switch gears to kindergarten and eat lunch and change my lesson plans to accommodate the extra assessing I should be getting done and find a career costume because I had forgotten that it was community helper day and wasn’t wearing anything “teachery” enough to fit my mindset of “Go big or go home.” Then, twenty minutes before school got out, Chad came in to ask if he could clean my carpets right away after school in order to eradicate scabies from the room. I said, “Yes, please, ew, and Elise your nose is bleeding.” When I finally left the church at 6:30, I knew that my work would continue after I warmed up a meal that my family had eaten nearly an hour before and fixed myself a cup of tea so that I could stay awake.

Yeah. One of THOSE days. (And I didn’t even mention that after I filled in all the information I had for my kindergarteners on my report cards, it didn’t save. So I had to do it again. At 9:30.)

As I sat in a tiny chair in my threes' classroom after school that day, stapling painted squares to white frames, this song—one of my favorite songs—started to play on one of my Pandora stations:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus.

Look full in his wonderful face.

And the things of earth will look strangely dim,

In the light of his glory and grace.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will look strangely dim, in the light of his glory and grace. Turn your eyes upon Jesus… the words went through my head over and over again. I wasn’t sure why, but the day hadn’t gotten to me yet. I kept waiting for the full realization of how much junk had happened to hit me, and as I got more and more and more compelled to just put my head down and nap, I could feel the appeal of being grumpy just this once.

About the seventeenth time I sang those words as I worked in and walked between my two classrooms in the empty(ish) church building, I realized what they meant. Every single thing that went wrong on Monday doesn’t even matter when I look at the face of Jesus. They are the things of earth. When I keep my eyes on Jesus, I remember that He said, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” I remember that He wrote, through Paul, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” I remember what I consider my life-verse:  “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” Even the winds and the waves obey him. This is not our home, and the things of this earth have nothing on the glory and grace of Jesus Christ. He is greater. Stronger. More.

If I start defining my life by what has happened, I’ve lost sight of Him.

Let me tell you the story of my Monday again:

Monday was one of those days. I saw God’s grace more clearly through Lisa, who showed me grace and understanding that I wasn’t able to give myself for being behind on just about everything. I knew God’s joy better because I heard the laughter of nine three-year-olds as we cleaned up each mess together and talked about how “Spill days just happen sometimes.” I had a ghostbuster in my classroom for community helper day. A ghostbuster, people. (It’s not at all scriptural, but it was awesome.) My carpet was cleaned, so now it’s cleaner than it has been in quite a while, I’m sure. I had some good, fun conversations with people that I wouldn’t see if I didn’t work here so late in the day. I was able to go home to an already-cooked meal and a delightful family. My cup of tea and the choir music for a couple weekends from now kept me awake as I thought about where each of my students is academically and socially (twice).

Yeah. One of THOSE days. 

I planned on stopping there, my musings sandwiched between “those days," but as I read that last paragraph again, I can’t help but think that something’s missing. Yes, those blessings are good and I should focus on them rather than on what went wrong; the problem is that anyone can do that. Anyone can just focus on the good and fill themselves with a little bit more optimism. Anyone can decide that happiness isn’t something they’re just given, but something they need to grab onto and hold tightly to. But those are still just things of this earth. They aren’t the secret that Paul found in Philippians 4 when he talked about being content in any circumstance; Jesus is.

I’ll finish by telling you the story of my Monday one last time.

Jesus lives. He saves. He works. He is. On THOSE days, and every other day.