Just another day

On the way to work today I was singing along with the radio and I was caught by the lyrics:

The sun comes up, it's a new day dawning
It's time to sing Your song again
Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me
Let me be singing when the evening comes

As I drove along, I thought about that. How awesome it is to know that God is good. That no matter what happens to me throughout the day – a fight with a friend, a cancer diagnosis, a lost phone, a broken car – God is still good.

Sometimes I do forget that. Sometimes I do get so caught up in the little, silly stuff around me that I stop  singing praises to the God who placed the earth the perfect distance from the sun just so that I could survive another day, and I start complaining, whining, ranting and raving about what didn ‘t go the way I had planned for it to.

So I turned the lyrics into a prayer. Abba, please, Please, at the end of the day, let me still be singing Your praises instead of caught up in my drama.

Then the day went on.

We had a special assembly for the Veterans, rescheduled from our snow day last week. The kids were wound up and had trouble settling down. The show ran late and reading groups got off track. Suddenly it was time to head to lunch. Two of my little ones got into a fist fight at recess, and three more had an ‘issue’ in the bathroom after. Math was a fiasco dealing with all of the behavior issues, and there was a miscommunication with another teacher which used up half of our phonics block.

 I sent the little ones home and rescheduled snowed out parent-teacher conferences, wrote lesson plans, and graded papers for two hours – only to discover that five children hadn’t even turned in their math papers, and three more had turned in no-name papers. I left the rest of the grading on my desk and headed out to Walmart to take care of my grandmother’s shopping. As I walked the aisles looking for each item on her list, my toes began seriously complaining about the new high heeled boots I’d slipped on that morning, and my stomach began whimpering that it was hungry, while my tongue began working overtime as a saliva factory every time I caught a glimpse of some non-gluten free food.

I smiled and chatted with the cashier as I paid for my purchases and headed out to my recently repaired Rav 4. I dropped my shopping bags onto the seat next to the bag full of work that still needed to be finished and turned the key in the ignition. As the engine started, music from the radio filled my car

The sun comes up, it's a new day dawning
It's time to sing Your song again
Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me
Let me be singing when the evening comes

And I smiled.

And sang praises to my Abba the whole way home…