A horrible, wonderful, miserable, glorious, no good, very great day.

Have you ever had one of those days?

A day which, itself, was the last in a string of difficult days. Or weeks.

Nagging and difficulty, compounded daily. A day in which you have a hard time believing that your children wouldn't be better off without you. A day in which you can't stand the sound of your own flawed parent's inflection bubbling out of your own flawed spirit, and being belched out of your own vile mouth.

A day in which your sin is met and mirrored by your exasperated child. A day in which everyone in the room sits stunned and silent as this horrid dynamic plays out and wonders what will happen.

But you have somewhere to be. And now you are going to be late. And you know you can't turn back the clock and that there will be loss.

And you don't think you want to go. You really want to send everyone to their rooms for the day and be. all. alone.

But you load up the kids and get in the car anyway. And you begin your drive questioning the good of having much...much to take care, much of which to be a steward, much opportunity to appreciate, much of which to make expectation, much to fail in and much about which to feel guilty.

And then...

as you drive away and leave the loudness, abandon the monotonous, and forsake the oppression of habit and expectation, the landscape changes. The work of man's hands gives way to the word of His power. Instead of raunchy billboards and decrepit building facades, you see tree tops swaying in the breeze and open fields hosting carefree creatures. Your lungs exhale and you feel your blood flow more freely; your body calms and your spirit sings.

The change in you is perceptible to the astute teen in the front seat, and your calm serves to settle her in turn. You reach over and hold her hand, squeezing it three times: code for "I. love. you." And though she doesn't reciprocate the gesture, she holds your hand too while quiet tears well.

God is doing His restorative work. And you thank Him very much.

And you thank Him, too, for the ministry of the new friend who is opening her home and acreage to 30 suburbanite children and their grateful mothers. What fun they will have! There are new friends to make, dry creek beds to explore, and bumps and bruises to ignore for the sake of the newly discovered ball game.

God, of course, is not in everything, but all of His creation certainly does testify to His greatness and is, somehow, a salve to your weary soul on such a horrible, wonderful, miserable, glorious, no good, very great day as was this day.