Sifting Through The Stuff

For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand [anywhere else];

 I would rather be a doorkeeper

and stand at the threshold in the house of my God

 than to dwell [at ease] in the tents of wickedness.

   For the Lord God is a Sun and Shield;

 the Lord bestows [present] grace and favor

 and [future] glory (honor, splendor, and heavenly bliss)!

 No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly.

Psalm 84:10-11, Amplified



Thank goodness for good friends.

I have a good, good friend almost nine hundred miles away. We met in the summer of 2001 when we were gearing up to kick off a brand new school year at a brand new school. Dare I say it was friendship at first sight? Not everything in life comes that easy.

I woke up this morning in a not-so-good mood. I definitely was not thinking about the goodness of the Lord or His mercy or future heavenly bliss. I was thinking that my head hurt and I did not want to face the day and I certainly did not want to drive kids to school. With two sick kids anyway (yes, we've went from the one sick kid yesterday to now two... just in case you're keeping track). But anyway, I was thinking What's the point of just taking one kid to school? We'll all just stay home so I can rest my aching head.

Except that one (not sick) kid loves school. To her, missing a day for no good reason would be one of the top five worst things that could ever happen to her. She wants to do well. She wants to be a teacher (be still my beating heart). One of the top five worst things I could do to her as a mom would be to make her stay home. So we went to school and I stopped to get gas which required a little shuffling of the funds so nothing would bounce. Just another day in our economic life.

Before I had even had my first cup of coffee, my dad called. He was talking about his weekend (birthday on Saturday) and he made a comment about Mother's Day. It was a sad, sad day. Now he didn't go into details, but I'm not entirely slow on most things: neither one of my parents have a mother still living. I bet that was a sad day. Stuff like that tends to put most things in perspective for me.

Back to my good, good friend, though. I fired up the computer this morning to see the above scripture she had posted (verse 10). I skimmed over it at first, but couldn't get the words out of my head. I broke out my handy-dandy, duct-taped Bible and read it a fourth or fifth time. At some point, the fog of self-pity that I woke up to began to clear.

One day with Him would be better than anything else.

Even if I was the door person.

It makes my heart smile just thinking about it.

All this other stuff is just, well... stuff.

stuff: noun. Refuse or worthless matter; nonsense.

That kind of puts things in perspective, too, doesn't it?

And it all makes me think of a song.

Thank you, Sharon, for being my good, good friend.

And for reminding me every day of the God we serve.