When Your Day Doesn’t Go as Planned
Ray and I have almost always managed fine with one car. I’m thankful for one particular blessing of being a one-car family. Ray and I have gotten to spend much more time together than we would have if we had been going our separate ways in two.
Still, one car makes some days a bit of a juggling act. Yesterday was one of those days, though as you see we survived the day intact.
We both have office space at company headquarters but we enjoy working in our home offices most of the time. Ray had several things he needed to do away from home yesterday, but we both needed to be at headquarters during the lunch hour.
We decided that Ray would drop me off there around 8:30, and I could work there. It sounded like a good idea, but there was a glitch. When I pushed the power button on the laptop I keep at headquarters, nothing happened. I went to our videographer Titus for help. Still nothing, so I contacted our tech support consultant who is working toward a fix that couldn’t happen yesterday.
Meanwhile, I limped along being somewhat productive on Ray’s laptop. I finished the morning with planned tasks still unfinished, including my blog post for today. That’s why I wrote the first draft of this post on a yellow legal pad I borrowed from Ray, while sitting in our optometrist’s parking lot while Ray had his annual exam.
Some days just don’t work out like we plan. That happened while we were homeschooling, too, and I’m sure it happens to you. Maybe it goes something like this:
“I can’t find my phone! We’ll be late for co-op.”
“Emma’s violin string broke and I don’t have time to get one before the recital tonight.”
“It’s midnight. My four-year-old has wet the bed, and his other sheets are in the washer!”
“I forgot to run the dishwasher last night, so I don’t have any clean bowls for breakfast!”
“Jenna left her math book at Grandma’s house last night!”
“Last week’s science experiment is molding in the garage, and the whole house is beginning to stink!”
On a given day, any of these scenarios can feel like a catastrophe—like the day I left the faucet running in the bathroom and water dripped on our unpacked moving boxes in the basement! Have I told you that story?
On other days, we know those scenarios are little blips that won’t matter a month from now because we have much bigger issues to handle, issues like:
“Granddad’s had a stroke so we need to leave for the airport in an hour to get to him” or
“The results from the scan are back, and the news is not what we had hoped.”
And so, how do we handle that day that doesn’t go as planned and that day that informs us that many unplanned days are coming? As hard as it is, we keep putting one foot in front of the other. We trust our faithful Father. We cherish the people He has given us to love. We are grateful that the sacrifice of Jesus is the ultimate answer for our days, years, lives, and eternity.
But as for me, I shall sing of Your strength;
Yes, I shall joyfully sing of Your lovingkindness in the morning,
For You have been my stronghold
And a refuge in the day of my distress.
Psalm 59:16