This morning, I’d like to introduce to you my friend, Deb. Deb has been active in all the field tests involving my praise books. I love her heart for God,and her heart for her man and her kids.   Those of you who are Mom’s are going to love this blog!  Leave a comment and I’ll enter your name to win a free copy of The 30 Day Praise Challenge plus an I-Tunes gift card.  If you already have a copy of the book and you win – let me know and I’ll sign the book to one of your friends. The praise book plus an I-Tunes gift card makes a fabulous Christmas gift especially since it won’t cost you anything. But……….you have to leave a comment in order to win.  I’ll draw one name as the lucky winner – so comment away.~

“One of Those Days”   — Deb Hall

Ever have one of those days . . . ? When every little thing seems to go wrong and your inner peace threatens to unravel . . .

I had one of those recently. I’ll spare you most of the details. Suffice it to share this: two grocery stores in mid-afternoon (i.e., normally naptime), four potty breaks (note: I only have two kids) in three locations (one being an emergency pit stop at McDonald’s), a near-disaster using a faulty tube of icing on my son’s birthday cake, topped off with my feeling utterly exhausted and running so late to a family potluck that all I could muster was a warp-speed shower and a hat to hide my hair. Truth be told, the evening was truly great.  I still told my husband at the end of the night, “I just need to finish this day and start over tomorrow.”

I realized the next morning that when “one of those days” happens, it could actually be more literal, like a true 24 hours . . . because the next morning had its not-so-lovely moments as well.

When these stressful little things happen, seemingly one after the other, why is it that my patience and decisiveness are the first to go? When the icing on the birthday cake oozed out red all over, why didn’t I just walk away from the baked goods and call it good with “Happy”? When faced with seemingly minor decisions that day, why was I so stumped?

When these stressful little things happen, we have two choices: calm down and possibly pray or freak out and make it worse. I’ve prayed about this before–that I would get a hold of my stress reactions, that I would become or at least appear more patient to onlookers, particularly my own family. I am doing my sons no favors if I model impatience and irritability. Convicting.

Instead, I want to be consistent in doing this: “But I have calmed and quieted myself, I am like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child I am content” (Psalm 131:2, NIV). I want to remember this: “A hot-tempered person stirs up conflict, but the one who is patient calms a quarrel” (Proverbs 15:18, NIV). I want to be wise: “Fools give full vent to their rage, but the wise bring calm in the end” (Proverbs 29:11, NIV). I get a kick out of this from the Message translation: “When besieged [by all the little stressful things], I’m calm as a baby. When all hell breaks loose, I’m collected and cool” (Psalms 27:3, MSG).

As I drove around that morning after my “one of those days,” I prayed. And I praised God for the beautiful fall colors I noticed. I asked the Holy Spirit to give me His peace, to help me get a hold of my mood, to simply take over. Oh, how it helped. That particular 24 hours was about to expire, so I was hopeful. But I also knew that when another “one of those days” loomed, my prayer and my praise could turn the tide. My God would be there.