If you’re willing the clock to get to the end of the class period, that is a very bad situation. But I was one teacher who had come into the hour unprepared. This was partly due to fatigue, partly due to Friday short-timer’s disease, and partly due to plain old procrastination.

(I would like the record to show that I am rarely unprepared to teach. Thank you.)

When my unpreparedness was combined with students who also had the Friday sickness and an arsenal of rubber bands, the result was very bad.

So I left the school with my tail tucked between my legs.

On the way home, I tried out the new word I learned a few weeks ago, when I was listening to the book To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth about Moving Others, by Daniel H. Pink: Decatastrophy.

Mr. Pink says that when we try to influence others, we will often experience failure, and what we say to ourselves afterwards is the key to our success.

Boy did I talk to myself. You’re not usually unprepared. Chin up. Your students are good kids. It was just a bad experience in the midst of a mountain of great days.

Still –ick, though. I decatastrophied my experience as hard as I could, but failure is not fun.

After pulling into my garage, I trudged over to the mail box. In our box was an envelope labeled QVC.

Mom!

Thank the Lord no one else was home, because as soon as I hit the kitchen I started bawling. Didn’t even have the package open yet. When I did get the plastic ripped open and discovered a new skort, I cried even harder and then laughed. Then cried. Then ran upstairs and tried on the skort.

Superdecatastrophization.

Here’s how to see this: My mom is the bomb. She is really kind and generous and thoughtful all of the time. But she had no idea that I was going to have the Friday Fail of all Fails. She couldn’t know how desperate I would be for encouragement on that particular day, at that specific time. Only God could actually be in my future and map out my mom’s actions and QVC’s shipping service and the USPS delivery system all for my good in the perfect moment. How kind is he!

A kind-hearted mom plus a glorious God are quite a force, eh?

For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.  (Psalm 84:11)

 

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