Turn the Day

I heard all of these stories in one day:

• One young child with seizures.
• One woman up in the night with congestive heart failure. Trying to breathe.
• One mom missing an important birthday party and three days of work because of dreadful pink eye.
• One second-cousin with a broken foot, missing the first day of college classes.
• One frustrated daughter trying for hours to download textbooks over spotty internet.
• One woman with stage IV cancer.
• One husband home early with a headache that won’t go away.
• One son mourning the last day of summer.
• One friend bracing herself to send a child to middle school and the other to live away from home.
• One cousin waiting long for news.

I was talking to the pink-eye lady and said, Sometimes life just doesn’t go as planned.

She said, Not as WE planned.

In the book of Job we read these words:

“One day…” (Job 1:13 NIV)

One day Job’s life was dismantled.

But before he put his head on the pillow he kneeled in front of God’s reputation.

“May the name of the Lord be praised.” (Job 1:21 NIV)

We need to speak out loud all those words that go with God’s name –faithful, good, loving, truthful, just, compassionate, and merciful.

Turning one very bad day into a platform of praise.