When You Have One of Those Days {or Weeks or a whole lot more}
By Holly Gerth
photo by moonlight bulb
“No big deal,” he says with a flash of his exceptionally white teeth. I so want to believe him. I’m here to have gum grafting–a procedure defined as “minor” in the dental world. Sure enough, I survive. Whew. But I’m not the same for the next week. I cling to my couch like it’s a life boat, have a lifetime supply of frozen yogurt and watch Food Network shows about everything else I can’t eat.
And during commercials, I battle the whispers. The ones that say, “You should be over this by now.” Or call me names I haven’t heard since the elementary school playground like “Wimp” and “Weenie.” I roll my eyes.
Seriously? I just had dental surgery and there’s still some part of me that thinks I should just snap out of it?
You’ve had this happen too, haven’t you? Life sends you a hard day,or week (or way more) and even though you know you should just give yourself a break you wind up being hard on yourself instead. {If it’s just me who does this, pretend along with me, o’kay? Thank you.}
So let’s talk about what we can do on those days, friends.
First, we can remember
we are not our circumstances. Our identity doesn’t change based on what happens in our day-to-day lives. I’m the same to Jesus when I’m sitting on the couch watching Food Network as I am when I’m standing on a stage speaking to women. I’m His girl. You’re His girl. Forever. Done and done.
Next,
we can choose to be on our own side. We’ve talked about this before but it’s worth looking back on when we have hard days. When the Apostle Paul asked, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” it was meant as a rhetorical question. But I realized there’s one person who can be against me. It’s the one staring back from the mirror. God is on your side so you need to be too. Otherwise we’re siding with the enemy. Yikes. Enough said.
Also,
we can do whatever we can to not make it worse. That means taking care of ourselves, asking for help, giving ourselves permission to rest or to do what we need to to be renewed. I’m bad at this, ladies. Here’s how bad: as I snoozed on the couch during my recovery I had a dream I was playing volleyball {can you guess what’s coming next?}. I went for a low ball and smacked myself square in the jaw in my sleep. Oh, yes, I did. You may go ahead and giggle now.
Most of all,
we need to know that we’re not the only one who goes through times when we feel small and weak and think we should be over it already and we’re just not. We’re all good at putting on a brave face and acting like’s whatever we’re facing is “no big deal.” But you know what? It IS a big deal. To us. And to God too. Because He loves us. And when you love someone, what matters to them matters to you.
So when we have one of those days, let’s be gentle with ourselves. Okay? Yes, ma’am. Now I think I’ll have some more frozen yogurt to celebrate that decision…"