Just one of those Days

Haven’t we all had one of those days? When you come to the end of the day frustrated, tired, ready to toss in the towel; but all that comes out of your lips is laughter. Maybe no one knows what I am talking about. But I will share with you my experiences of the “Thursday debacle.” I pulled into the parking lot of the church this morning ready to face the day. I spent the morning planning for a big youth rally, finishing up the power point for the building project, and trying to udate my address book of about 75 pastors to invite to our youth rally this spring. I felt a little stressed because my senior pastor had been hyping our Friday Valentine’s banquet with the promise of “Homer and Jethro” entertaining the crowd. Now my co-worker and I have done a little routine some years back that he thought was pretty funny. The only problem is that I am not funny; especially when I am put on the spot. I can only expect crickets tomorrow night. But I have been practicing my best jokes and one-liners hoping to not make too big of a fool out of myself. With this on my mind and the pressure of getting the power points, booklets, and brochures ready for the senior pastor’s trip next week, I was feeling a little bit stressed. OK I will be honest. I consider myself a fairly intelligent individual, but when I get a little stressed, I turn into a major blonde. I looked at the clock while I was stressing out about being stressed and realized that it was time to teach Bible to the Jr. High class. I rushed into the classroom, got my bearings and gave a stirring lecture on Daniel chapter 3. It was a good thing I knew that account of the fiery furnace, because I had yet to look at my lesson for the day. After that, I spent the afternoon discussing governmental role in the Civil War and today with a couple of Jr. Highers, but I finally made it back to my desk to continue working on the brochures. No sooner had a sat down and focused my eyes on the white computer screen, when I got a phone call from a trucker who said that he was a believer and would like to come to our services twice a month, but has a little trouble. He needed someone to come give him a ride to another truck stop to get picked up by one of his co-workers. I hemmed and hawed and finally said yes, but I just added to my stress. He was about 20 minutes away and the after school Bible club that I run started in 1 hour. Oh, yeah, three of my volunteers in the club were gone for the day and I was expecting 35-40 kids with no teachers. I sped up to truck stop; (yes, literally)and on the way I called my dad to let him know that if I didn’t call him back to notify the next of kin (we’ve all heard stories of abductions by strangers on the freeway) you were thinking the same thing. I dropped off the trucker and drove back to the house nearly avoiding an accident (it wasn’t my fault, some speed-demon ran a red light and nearly took us all out). I had to go home first because I was planning to make some calls with a man from our church that night and I needed to call him, but had left his number on the counter. I ran through the house, threw the keys on the counter, and began rummaging for the number. I found it, ran out the door locking it behind me, jumped in the front seat of the car and tried to turn the keys and it suddenly hit me, I knew exactly where my keys were and they weren’t in my pocket. Yep, they were right on the counter in the kitchen. Now, an intelligent person would have listened to his wife’s many requests to get an extra house key made, but not me. I had 15 minutes to get to the children’s club and no way to get there. I did what every man must do in that situation, I called my wife and complained. Then I got a hacksaw and tried to cut the door knob to the house off. Let me just tell you, that’s thick metal. I got frustrated, so I got my hammer out of the garage and hit that doorknob so hard, it sheered off in one blow. After I successfully broke into the house, I got my keys and made it back for the kid’s club. We got home about 6:00, I threw in a frozen pizza and talked on the phone for a few minutes. I then hurried back to the church to meet a friend for calling. The first stop was at an apartment complex. I got my Bible and a few tracts and tried to look friendly as I rang the doorbell. I wouldn’t say the callee was exactly glad to see us, but we talked for about 5 minutes and as we turned to walk back to my car, my heart leapt. There not 30 feet in front of us were two men affixing a boot to the front wheel of my car. I ran up to them begging and pleading. “I didn’t see the sign (that’s true), it was only five minutes.” But to no avail. I learned two things that night. Those guys who tow your car, are extremely quiet and quick with their job. One of the guys was so kind, he offered to drive me down to the ATM machine so I could withdraw 55 dollars to have them remove the boot. And so I am sitting here writing this blog for no other reason than to vent and say, “Lord, I know that you reward your servants in heaven, but do you think I could get the 55 bucks back now?”