By the standards of most people I know, Tuesday was an awful day. Frustrating from beginning to end. Saying it didn’t leave me with the warm fuzzies is a major understatement. After about forty-eight hours of mulling it over (or chewing cud, as a good friend of mine would say), here’s an outline of what happened, along with my musings.
Tuesday
5AM – Alarm goes off, wake up, and start getting ready to work – only to realize power is out because of the crazy thunderstorm that came through last night. It stays out until right before I leave for work.*
Curse: Power’s out.
Blessing: I use my cell phone as an alarm, and it is fully charged. Didn’t wake up late. Also, I can sleep an extra forty-five minutes because there’s no point in trying to do anything on the computer. Plus, God makes sure I walk out of the house in a semi-matching outfit (always a plus for an office job). And – obviously – the power does come back on. Some people will be without it until middle of the day Wednesday.
7:16AM – On the bus, just crossing over the Salt River bed… traffic is backed up half a mile because the traffic signal at the next light is out (crazy thunderstorm… over 30 traffic signals are out across the valley and causing major headaches).
Curse: It takes fifteen minutes to get from the bridge through the intersection with the traffic signal that’s out. Looks like I’ll be late for work.
Blessing: Fifteen extra minutes to doze in stop and go traffic (I haven’t been sleeping well because of toothaches and sinus pressure).
8:10AM – Get to work
Curse: 10 minutes late. Drill Instructor Pollock (Dad) marching around my head, shrieking about how being early is on time, on time is late, and late means getting left behind.
Blessing: God told me to clock in ten minutes early from lunch yesterday, so the time is covered. Plus I have my iPod on me, and spent the walk from the bus to work letting Him minister to me through music.
8:11AM – Attempt to turn on work computer, it won’t boot up. Pull it out, to find it’s clicking. And the lights on the keyboard are flashing.
Curse: Can’t clock in. Can’t check yesterday’s voids. Can’t check email. Can’t work on more than a couple of the 50 projects sitting on the desk.
Blessing: Joy (my next-desk-over co-worker) lets me use her computer to clock in. Al in IT collects my computer within five minutes of me calling to see what he can do to fix it… and does so in an hour and a half. Brenda in AR checks the voids for me.
10AM – Toothache is too much, have to get in to a dentist.
Curse: Pain meds aren’t cutting it anymore. Plus, I have to go in to a dentist.
Blessing: Manage to get an appointment for this afternoon. Bonus points because the appointment’s during my lunch hour.
1:45PM – Dentist comes in, pokes around quickly, and declares two teeth must be extracted.
Curse: Two teeth? Also, he spends very little time looking around in my mouth, drops the extraction bomb, and then leaves the dental assistant to clean up the mess behind him. Not to mention that I don’t have much set aside in the budget for dental care.
Blessing: Extraction will cost a fraction of the root canal Mom had last week. Plus, I have my choice of pretty much any time slot Friday afternoon. Also, I have PTO hours I don’t want to lose before I leave… more than enough to take the afternoon off.
I wish I could say that I chose the high road and looked more at the blessings of the day than at the curses, but in the moments they were happening, the curses were all I could think about (although I did end the day seeing the blessings). I find it’s true that shock (in whatever form it comes) finds me listening to the whispers in my ear about how awful what’s happening to me is. This isn’t some new kind of revelation for me, and the truth of it isn’t rocking my heart to the core that I still choose to do this. Sometimes, I think I’ve resigned myself to the idea that this cycle will continue until the day I die, and settle for a quasi-acceptance of this flaw that God won’t fix in me until I reach His side.
But that resignation is a choice I’ve made, and isn’t the truth.
If there was one thing and one thing only I could have walked away from training camp with back in October, it is that freedom in Christ is having a choice – a choice in who and what you listen to. Something that has been frustrating since coming home from that is knowing there’s a choice to be made, and listening to the voice I shouldn’t be paying any attention to – letting myself be discouraged, feeling entitled to complain for no good reason, and generally acting like I’m owed something I haven’t been given. I know better, and I still do it.
It looks like I still have a sea of choices to make. Thankfully, God is gracious and merciful to forgive me when I mess up. Thankfully, I always have a second chance when it comes to learning to choose freedom. And thankfully, I’m not afraid to try.
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A couple of blogs that have had me thinking about this: (if you’re interested)
