"This is the day...

...the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." That's Psalm 118:24. That verse is usually quoted at the beginning of a new day. (I often pray it early in the morning: "Help me to rejoice and be glad in it.") But have you ever heard anyone quote that verse at night? After you've had a really bad day?

I had a bad day yesterday. I thought and prayed about whether or not I should write about it here, but I think maybe there are some people reading this who need to know that it's OK to have a bad day once in a while.

I mean, it's not OK, but you know what I mean. If/when you have a bad day, Somebody wants to make His shoulder available to cry on.

"Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me hear joy and gladness, that the bones You have broken may rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.

...

O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise. For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; You do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart -- these, O God, You will not despise." (Psalm 51:7-9, 15-17)

 

This is a picture of me singing on a mission trip in Juarez, Mexico, about 17 years ago. I used to go on those mission trips with a bunch of college students. I have mixed feelings about those mission trips now. Sure, I don't doubt that many people got saved and met God for the very first time. In that respect, mission accomplished. But did everyone who prayed a "salvation prayer" truly give their life to Christ? Or did some people just succumb to the onslaught of gringo college students who were possibly accidentally manipulating them into praying? Were the people of Juarez sincere? Were they afraid of us? Were they being overly courteous doormats, as many of us Hispanics tend to be? Or were they just praying to be polite so that we would get off their turf and leave them alone?

I've probably overthought these trips in hindsight, but sometimes a chick's just gotta think through stuff and unravel stuff out of her head. I'm pretty sure I disposed of the lyric sheets that we used for these street-music ministry sets, but I think I still have those Spanish songs memorized.

During one particular mission trip in Juarez, one man attended one of our street-music ministry sets and tearfully gave his life to Christ. I think he met us on the way back home from a bar or something like that. But a few months later, I saw him on the mission trip's video tearfully having another conversation during another street-music ministry set. I think somebody observed that that man tearfully got saved every night that we were there.

Shortly after that mission trip, I heard a pastor talk about how events are sometimes designed to be very intense, I think like a foundation that we can build on later. But intense events like that aren't necessarily an example of daily life. That man on the mission trip who tearfully kept repenting to God would only have us crazy gringos with him for a few days. We wouldn't be around to hold his hand for the rest of his life. How would he survive after we'd travel back home?

That pastor was right. For the most part, intense events with God are designed to pump vision into us. Carrying out that vision is a different story. I mean, after Moses had his famous burning-bush experience, the same God who appeared to him in the burning bush and called him to lead His people out of Egypt also appeared to him one night ready to kill him because he hadn't circumcised his son. (From what I understand, that incident caused a major strain in Moses' marriage.)

Yep. After the cool power encounters, we have the nuts and bolts of daily life to deal with. And the only One who will always be there for you during those mundane, life-in-your-face times is God. (And it's always a good idea to obey Him when He tells you to do stuff like circumcise your sons.)

So, one of those mundane, life-in-your-face times for me was yesterday. And it was a bad day.

I mean, you'd probably have a bad day, too, if you drove to work and wondered if you might actually get paid that day because your boss has a bad habit of paying you whenever the heck he feels like it, and then you looked out the window and noticed that it was snowing, and you stayed glued to all the windows in the office and had trouble concentrating on your work because you noticed that it was snowing harder, and it was sticking, and you didn't want to drive home in that, and you wondered if you'd be stuck there at work that day, especially since the boss' 50-year-old son who never wears pants, always shorts, was like, "It's just snow," and he makes fun of you when he sees you staring out the window, and he's like, "There's Tirzah. It's Snowmageddon!" And your coworker who's never seen snow is freaking out along with you, and you hope that you won't have to spend the night with these people, and your boss finally shows up and is like, "Aw, I love snow," and he listens to the appeals of your freaked-out coworker and lets us all go home early, and you spend like 20 minutes brushing off the snow from the car, and it takes you like an hour to drive home, and you realize that the "It's just snow" turns into ice after people drive over it and melt it with their warm cars, and it more than likely freezes again because it's like 26 degrees outside, and you're so thankful to make it home again, where it's warm, and you relax a little bit too thoroughly, to the point of slipping up, and you email your boss to ask him about your paycheck, and he emails you back to tell you that he passed out everybody's paychecks about half an hour after he said we could go home if we wanted to, and then you spend the next hour pacing your living room and calling your boss a bleeping bleephole behind his back, but at least you make arrangements with him to hide your paycheck in your desk so that it will be safe there in that office that doesn't have any security guards, and rent is due, and you seriously spend like an hour praying through the fact that your boss is a bleeping bleephole, and you try to forgive him as thoroughly as you can, because you can't think straight anymore, because you're so freaking mad, and you feel so disrespected as an employee because now you have to wait until the streets thaw out before you can drive back to your office and pick up your paycheck, and didn't that bleeping bleephole see me spending 20 minutes brushing the snow off my car, and why didn't he flag me down and be like, Hey, chickie, let me give you your paycheck before you leave, because that's the whole point of you killing yourself working for me here, isn't it, and now I'm stuck at home where I have PMS and no chocolate, and oh my gosh.

So, while I was pacing my apartment in a freaking rage yesterday, God was like, "You're having a bad day. I want your bad day."

So, He didn't try to kill me like He did with Moses. He listened to me, and He helped me calm down. Then last night, I watched comedy videos on the internet for a really long time because I really needed to laugh. And then when the videos were over, I flipped over to Psalm 51 on my computer, and I cried. I turned to God and asked Him, "Do You still want me?" Of course He did. When I went to bed, He met me gently at my pillow and asked, "Do you want to talk about it?" I don't remember my exact response, but I basically said, "I just want to matter. I matter." And then I probably drifted off to sleep, because I don't remember anything else until 7 hours later.

People talk about "The Five Love Languages" all the time, so I won't go into that in detail here. Personally, I think that whole theory is a load of malarkey, for reasons that I won't go into here. But I am probably full of crap. And I will say that God has told me, "Your love language is shepherding," and it's both ways (giving and receiving), and He's totally right.

By that, I mean that the way I express love for a person (or cats), the way that I show that I care about them, is by checking on them. "Hey, how are you doing? How is that situation you asked me to pray for?" I think my cats can vouch for this. "Hello, how are you doing? I'm about to leave the room. Are you going to be OK in here?" Yes, Mom. We're cats.

And when somebody neglects to check on me, I don't feel loved. When somebody neglects to take care of me, I don't feel loved. When I look around at the backdrop of my life and see that God has gone out of His way to carve out a job, a place to live, and a church for me to serve, I see that He has been taking extremely good care of me, and I feel loved. But when a boss couldn't care less about my drive to or from work, or when I have to guess when I'm going to get my paycheck, I don't feel taken care of, and I don't feel loved at all.

I think that is a huge reason why I was freaking out so much yesterday.

Speaking of my job, last month when I was playing hide-and-seek with my paycheck, God told me to wait three months before looking for another job. Yesterday, He told me with a knowing smirk, "It's only been one month."

Yep. That it has.

So, I think during these next two months -- actually, probably for the rest of my life -- I want God to squeeze out anything that He needs to squeeze out of my heart. Anything that's rotten, nasty, and decaying, I would very much like for Him to remove it and replace it with new stuff -- His stuff.

So, about 17 years ago during that mission trip to Juarez, Mexico, I remember walking the streets with a group of people who were itching to share the gospel with somebody. If I remember correctly, they put me in charge of that small group of people. We found a guy who was working under the hood of his car. The itchy gospel-sharers in my group were like, "Hey, let's talk to that guy!" I was like, "No, I don't think we should bother him." Then as we were walking away, one of the chicks in my group was like, "Lord, I pray that You would break the spirit of fear off of Tirzah."

Um, was that the spirit of fear, or was that me being a shepherd? Was that me being afraid of sharing the gospel, or was that me being sensitive to the fact that some guy who's minding his own business under the hood of his car might not appreciate a bunch of crazy itchy gospel-sharing gringos getting in his face?

To this day, I'm honestly not sure. But at least I know who I am now.

It's OK to have a bad day once in a while, but I hope today will be a much better day than yesterday... even though I'm stuck at home with PMS and no chocolate.

And I have a Father who takes extremely good care of me -- better than anyone else ever will -- and He listens to me. And He still wants me. Those are all definitely good reasons to rejoice and be glad today.