A HIGHER RESPONSE

Have you ever had a bad day? You know, the kind of day where nothing went right, your boss went on a rant and you were the closest target and the customer mysteriously knew about your boss’s rant and followed their lead adding vitriol to your collection. And then there was that person who didn’t follow through leaving you with a chaotic mess to clean up and more ammo for your boss and when you got home you received a less than compassionate note from the IRS and…OH! The principal left a message asking if you could “meet” regarding your child. 

Although we may have bad bays, they pale in comparison to traumatic days. Those days when you feel like you have been punched in the stomach and find it hard to breathe. Those days when it feels like all thought has left you, only to realize that so many thoughts are swirling in your mind that it feels more like a tornado finding it impossible to “think.” Or those days when you run headlong into the brick wall of an unexpected event that you literally feel numb without any feeling at all. 

Unbeknownst to many of us, “Bad Days” and “Traumatic Days” have been with us ever since childhood. Each time they arrive, some more unexpected than others, we respond, not necessarily to others around us, but we respond to ourselves. Some respond by getting angry, some respond by getting sad. Some respond by avoiding and some respond by self-medicating. But in every instance, we typically respond in a way that makes sense to us, in a way we invented, and in a way that feels “right” in the moment because no one ever taught us how to respond to “Bad Days” and “Traumatic Days.”

There is One, however, who has seen the “Bad Days” and “Traumatic Days” before they even arrived. He even went so far as to put Himself in between those days and our lives. Not only did He see them before they arrived, not only did He step in between those days and us, but He also taught us how to respond (1 Peter 5:7, The Passion Translation). Those “Days” are inevitable, but the key is how we respond to “Those” days. Some days require frustration and some days require tears, but the pain of “Bad Days” and “Traumatic Days” were never meant to be carried on our shoulders, they were meant to be carried on His. He never said it would be easy, but He did say it would be worth it. Now about that “meeting” with your principal…