thank you, david crowder, for yet another epiphany.

today didn’t start well. i think it’s sinus pressure, but H woke up very upset and not so willing to go back to sleep. after haphazard running around, finding biz cas clothes that fit and trying to straighten kinked hair, i got to work barely on time. then in chronological order of frustration:
1. computer won’t load with my local profile. no bookmarks, no shortcuts to documents and i had interviews. great.
2. jj called to say he spilled coffee on the laptop and it wasn’t working. super great.
3. the account manager for one of my accounts called to say that instead of a 2-day trip to DC he wanted to know if i could be gone all week.

stomp on my pinky toe, would ya?

so i found myself throwing a solitary pity party, at times with tears, with all the overwhelmingness that has been life lately. my mundane task of the day (which i am really enjoying) finally called for some tunes. enter: david crowder.

so i got to thinking about how i have to take it one day at a time. somehow or another i thought “just get through today”. but then i remembered last night. i “got through” last night but didn’t enjoy it. i remembered going to bed and being very disappointed, not so much in H’s bad night but in my reaction to it. so, i decided i want more from life than just “getting through.”

as i have previously droned on and on about, donald miller in his new book talks about story as an image for life. there’s a part where it talks about playing the victim. KLM and i have had several discussions about a related topic. granted, there are times in life where things are uncontrollable. we can’t (despite my repeated efforts) control everything. BUT. we can control how we react to it. we can control what we let it do to us. we can control if we let it control us.

then i heard david singing the title of his first CD (back before he was dc*b but rather ” the university baptist praise band”): “And this is all that I can say right now // And this is all that I can give” (complete song). And it goes on “I didn’t notice You were standing here /I didn’t know that /That was You holding me /I didn’t notice You were cry’n too /I didn’t know thatThat was You was/hing my feet

so i decided. right then. i don’t have to have it all together. things won’t always go great. but i don’t have to slog through the day as if i have no light in my life. i do. i can make decisions about how i can react to things that frustrate me. there’s no need to let the bad days have the last word because there is something bigger.

and so the day ended much better.

1. mark saved the day again. computer dried, all is well. someone give this guy a coke.
2. i decided i can travel for 2 days but not 5. i’m part time and so i do have some freedom in making that decision. so i will.
3. JE supplied a glorious dinner of homemade mexican. with pickles. love her.
4. caught up on blog reading, which brings great joy. can someone PLEASE make me the greenish one on the far right for H?
5. another blogger says, Please remember: magazines may come and go, but a complete absence of confidence is forever. I’m thinking of lovingly cross-stitching that last sentence on a pillow. i’m pretty sure that there are secret gnomes following me around and recording the conversations that i have with KLM because we have joked about that very thing (the cross-stitching). i’m pretty sure we had an ongoing list of top worst things to put on a cross-stitched pillow. not long ago yahoo! published an article on kids and money. KLM and i had previousy decided every single thing on the list. as she texted last friday, “someone should give us a nobel prize – we have great ideas, too!” i replied “yes, with a similar lack of follow through!”

I’m not sure why the cross-stitching topped off my day with a smile, but it did. though there were some roadblocks and slippery points, really it was a good day.