Delighting in this Day

Summer has come and gone.  We are on week two of school now and trying to get used to the routines again.  The other day I posted something on facebook that seemed to strike a cord with people.  I got phone calls and messages from people who said .. “I needed to read that”.  One person called and asked if she could use it as a guest post on her blog.  I said “of course” … which only reminded me that I had a neglected blog and that maybe I could post it on here too.  Here you go …  and hope your year has gotten off to a great start!

Delighting in This Day

One day last year my daughter Brittany was swimming in a swim meet which was very important to her. She wanted to do well and trained hard all season. As the day unfolded we realized it was not going to go like she had hoped. To say it was not her best swim was a total understatement. She did so poorly her coach suggested having her tested for mono as he felt something must surely be wrong.

Her disappointment after the meet was great. In fact, it was the only time I ever saw/heard her cry about a sport. My husband Bill and I felt helpless in what to do or say and we were both sad right along with her.

Later that night as we were discussing how the day went. I told Bill that I had texted Brittany a Bible verse early that morning. He said he had done that as well. When we asked each other what verse we had each sent, completely randomly, we had both picked the exact same verse.

Psalms 118:24. This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.

It still seems so crazy to me that of all the verses in the Bible we both sent that one to her. I was so glad we hadn’t sent one about winning the race or anything like that… Because that didn’t really matter. What mattered at the end of that day … When she was discouraged and sad and wondered if it all had been worth it .. Was right at the heart of that verse. Regardless of what that day brought, it was the day the Lord had made…and whether we liked that day or not, we could rejoice in it.

We weren’t happy rejoicers. We didn’t think it was great to be rejoicing…look, we didn’t even feel like rejoicing…but it was the day the Lord made and that was a good enough reason to rejoice.

The literal Hebrew definition of rejoice is “to delight in God’s grace”. So it wasn’t even that we had to say “awesome, great day!” (because it was not) … but we could know God was gracious towards us, towards Brittany.

There are plenty of other times when we’ve wanted to yell “man down!” in our family and we’ve shed tears and questioned why or wondered what we could have done differently.

But then we remember…“this is the day the Lord has made (despite what happens) and we will rejoice (delight in God’s grace) and be glad in it.

Shed your grace on us Lord. 
We need it and will delight in it.