Day 24, It was a Rough Day

I am pretty sure that if you added up all the days of my adult life, about ninety percent of them I labeled “rough”. I was either studying for a college, or tackling a lot at work, or dealing with drama from a friend, or caring for my babies, or … well… you get the idea. Pretty much, unless all my plans went exactly like I expected or I was on vacation, then my day was “rough”. 

I never thought about how damaging that was. I have even learned all the psychology about self-fulfilling prophecies and etc, but I still went around telling everyone that it was “rough”. 

There are other versions of this. How does it feel when you tell your spouse with a sigh that your day was “busy” or “long”? What if you say that it was “crazy” or “a lot.” Now, those are completely subjective titles and they make us feel awful. I totally know people whose idea of playing with a toddler all day sounds like Heaven or cooking for a dinner party is a completely exciting joy. 

Instead of using those negative titles for your day, I want you to try one of these: “I got a lot done today.” “Today was productive.” “God was with me all day.” “I learned a lot about myself today.”

I’m not asking you to go all Tony Tiger and say, “It was GRRRRRREAT!” However, the moment you jump from a negative designation to a neutral one, you will find that your mind actually opens up and sees the day clearly without that lens of pain you had fixed to it. A neutral designation forces you to really look at what happened and can even get you to see things you had overlooked--blessings, surprises, love.

God truly is with us, in every kind of day. As David, the psalmist wrote, The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters. Psalm 23:1-2, NIV. 

Today, I want to help you relieve some stress as you reconsider the labels you place on your life. 

Journal Prompt: If someone asked you how your day was, how do you typically respond? How does that make you feel? If you were to give a more neutral response, how would that make you feel? 

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