At the end of the day, one of measuring sticks of a good day is the fact that my family ate and slept well. I feel that life is best enjoyed when you’re physically feeling good, so I do everything I can to help my kids in that way. Then they can play hard, their minds are ready to see new opportunities for adventure. For the past several weeks, since we’ve settled in from the move and I’ve been on maternity leave, it’s been very easy to establish a pattern for making sure dinner is on the table and ready to be enjoyed. I’ve actually enjoyed this part of my day and feel a sense of pride at doing it well.
Yesterday, I just didn’t feel like it.
Blame it on the rain (yeah, yeah). Blame it on the Mondays. Blame it on the whiney children and the infant getting into new sleep patterns. But whatever be the case, I was done with yesterday by 11:30am with no intentions of wanting to restart. Thank goodness the kids were overdue to have a long nap and obliged.
But we still needed something to eat for dinner. We had the innerds of potatoes, leftover from the skins we made for game night on Saturday (the best part of the game, I must say), so I told myself to use them up in some form of mashed potato. So I “fried” some chicken a la my mom, which is actually browning it and putting it in the oven. Then I attempted some gravy. The potatoes were lumpy, the gravy too thick, but it was filling and wholesome. Mission accomplished.
I started thinking how often faith is like dinner. Sometimes you have to dig in because you need to eat. Faith is easy at the extremes – when prayers are answered or when life seems to be falling apart. That’s when we know where to look. But for those times that simply “blah”, we’re tempted to sit around and sulk and then order in. The good and the bad aren’t there to propel us into action so we become spiritually sedentary.
Sometimes we don’t feel like being faithful. But that’s the work of faith; living outside of our feelings at times. Not that we can’t take a break from normal routines; not that sometimes faith calls for us to change things up. I’m not saying that if you fail to open the Bible one morning that you’re stumbling in your faith. But it’s much like love; some days we just don’t feel like doing the loving thing; selfishness is easier and appears to meet our needs at the moment. But love is about much more than how I feel at a given moment in time. At least, if I want the love to last, it is.
I’m all for creating space; I understand the need for refueling. But sometimes the thing that will fill your tank is to dig in and do what you don’t want to do.