Worst (or best) Day Ever?

*Warning - this post contains graphic complaining. Viewer discretion is advised....

Last Friday was an exercise in the totally bizzare.

There are seasons as a pastor where your family comes under attack. You expect that.

Since I'm trying to win people to the Kingdom of God, you understand up front that you have a red bullseye painted on the front of your chest.

However, Friday took it to a whole new level.

It began when my son woke up and discovered that a tick had latched on to his side. Now, I had to research it and we were able to get the tick off him since it hadn't burrowed yet, but then I had to discover what kind of a tick it was and figure out whether or not he would get Lyme Disease. After spending some time looking at options, we determined it wasn't serious. The bug had barely bit him and the sites I visited said that it usually took >36 hours for the tick to pass on the disease and this variety didn't even carry it.

So, we calmed him down and resolved ourselves to watch him for symptoms. This put me in an extremely foul mood. I was trying to get my family ready and out the door so that we could enjoy breakfast as a family on Josh's last day of Spring Break.

I wanted the day to be perfect from then on, but little did I know that it was going to be anything but that.

Over the next few hours, these things occurred:

• Traffic on the way to the restaurant
• Every red light I could've hit, I hit
• Josh was in an extremely foul mood (probably because of the tick) and that bothered me and my nerves
• There was a huge line at the restaurant
• The food was cold when it arrived at our table
• We went shopping after breakfast and couldn't find what we were looking for
• When we came back home, Josh went out to play and Cara decided to clean the bathrooms, where chemicals somehow got flung into her eye and had to flush them out for 20 minutes before we were able to get it to stop burning
• My allergies started acting up and I was sneezing my head off (more about that next week)
• Josh and I tried to play the Wii, only to have it freeze up right as we got to the end of our game we were playing together
• We found a second tick crawling on Josh after he came indoors and we got to it before it could get on him
• We went to cook a meal for dinner and after making the meal, realized that the butter we had used to make the meal had expired (Cara normally checks such things, but I was cooking that evening)

After a long and frustrating day where nothing seemed to go right, we were getting water to take upstairs with us before bed and the cup Cara was holding fell out of her hands. the cup immediately fell onto the floor and cracked and the water that had previously been in the cup flew the entire length of our kitchen and sprayed me in the face....

...and we laughed.

After the day we had experienced, what else could you do in a moment like that? We each have a choice on how we react to situations. During the majority of the day, I had complained, whined, been frustrated and stamped my foot quite a bit, but with water dripping down my face, I began to see what God had done for us:

• The tick(s) didn't hurt Josh. He didn't contract a disease from them because we found them early enough
• We didn't get in an accident during our trip(s) out of the house
• We had food to eat and everyone was healthy enough to go out to breakfast
• At least we have a bathroom (with indoor plumbing) to clean
• I was able to sit down with my son and play a game together even if we didn't get to finish it
• We are able to cook indoors and we have food in our pantry
• We have more cups and more water

Instead of viewing it as the worst day ever, maybe I should have viewed it as the best, because God showed me how many blessings I really had during the day.