Monday, May 16, 2011

Ooops. Try Again Tomorrow.

Every morning when I wake up the first thing I see is a small sign which sets on my shelf with the message “Trust Me Always, Love God.” And I always try to make the first words out of my mouth be based on Psalm 118:24, “This is the day the Lord has made; I will rejoice and be glad in it.” It’s an effort to get my day started off focused on Christ and not on all the things that could potentially go wrong, be annoying, or get me off track.

Well, this morning, for whatever reason, I forgot.

And, please know, I’m not actually saying that things went downhill because of that lapse in memory, but….

I was running ten minutes late on my way to drop of Willow Grace with Mom this morning. And so I was distracted and was speeding which led to me getting pulled over and receiving a ticket. The officer was calm but also felt the need to tell me that he was annoyed with me. Did you know that you’re supposed to stay ½ a mile behind a police car? That’s what he told me. I was following him too close, apparently. He was speeding; I was behind him. He slowed down, got behind me, and pulled me over.

I shared with one of my classes all that I’ve just written and told them, rather tongue-in-cheek, that they could feel free to blame anything bad in their day on me today since I had forgotten to center my trust and thanksgiving on the Lord this morning. Happy to play along, so far, the students have blamed me for bad grades, forgotten homework, misbehaving in class, and a small assortment of other frustrations.

Ah well…. You can be sure I will be mindful to start my day off right tomorrow.