A Bad Day

Have you ever had a really bad day? I don’t mean a day when you wake and there’s no coffee or your team loses or you burn supper. I’m talking about days you want to crawl under a table or back into bed. These are days that are not just gray but black and stormy. These days tend to grow and become, like the theme from Friends,  a week, a month or even a year.

A bad day,  week, month or year can disable us. Bad days aren’t just unpleasant. They can kill our joy and blunt our purpose. They are disabling and disturbing. They are bad enough when we think we know the “why.” They are much worse when we can’t really put our finger on the cause. 

I find that to break the funk I need to ask some questions.

Am I being a Winnie baby?  This is always my first question because the quest usually ends here. My funk is usually based on my ingratitude, my failure to live in Thanksgiving.

When I recognize the cause, I have some tried-and-true solutions.  I have some pictures of life in a dump.  Recently I came across this:

 

I find I need a carrot and a stick to break out of a funk-based on my Winnie Baby attitude. The sticks are things like the above letter or pictures of children living in a garbage dump, or anyone, whose life leads me to a greater appreciation of my own.

I also find it helpful to look around and appreciate what I have: my family, my possessions, my life with Jesus. 

Have I made my bed?

This may seem a strange question but it is based on the book,  Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life…And Maybe the World by William H. Mcraven. 

I am a news junky. I can get caught up in national and world events and spend hours glued to the television. A funk is a natural result of such addiction. The essence of Mcraven’s book is that we can only have an influence on those things within our control. In our chaotic world, we respond by making order, and our beds, within our sphere of control. 

A bad day may be based on a feeling of loss of control that we are surrounded by chaos. The problem is there is much we can’t control. We need to focus on what we can. It’s what the serenity prayer is all about.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

Start small…start close….move out… We can’t change Washington, but we can make our bed.

What’s my world view? 

Is how I look at the world affecting me? 

This is not our home.

It shouldn’t set our priorities or drive our motives.

We need to be earthly bound but heavenly minded. 

God is that you?

If it’s not my selfishness or my laziness or the world, could it be God?

God created us for a relationship with him.

God will send or allow a bad day for his child to get our attention. We may need a course correction or He may just need us to spend time with Him. Sometimes he will do things or allow things that give us an opportunity to draw closer to him or to guide us in the direction of his will for us.

God knows best.

So if the day isn’t great, get grateful, make your bed, admire His world, spend some time with him. It’s a bad day, not a bad life.