Patience and Grace

I'm just going to put it out there; I had a bad week. Nothing extremely bad but one of those weeks that we all have from time to time when we just can't wait for the day to be over and then when you wake up and realize the next day isn't going well either, you can't wait for that day to get over and so on and so forth.

Prior to having this bad week (which I guess you could say it was more mediocre than anything), I was on cloud 9. Things have been clipping along smoothly. I'm nearing the end of the term (and therefore the end of my degree) and so of course, there are many things that need to be completed. The stress levels have been high but then to top on the bad week which was last week, I felt like the whole Universe was against me.

I felt sorry for myself for a bit, whined and admittedly, I cried. But every night, as I climbed into bed, I thought "okay, that day sucked; tomorrow can be better." And yet, day after day, the days didn't seem to improve. It was just crap!

But then the big lesson dawned on me. Yes, I believe in the old cliche that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, but that suggests that rare, big challenges will test our strength. What about the little nuisances? What about stubbing your toe, twice in one night? Realizing you don't have enough eggs for breakfast? Forgetting...anything! Day after day after day...the big lesson here isn't that life is cut and dry into great days and awful days, but the entire variety of in between days. It's the mosquitoes of days, not the bears of days...and I think that figuring out how to manage through is the important part.

So what if there is a mosquito in your bedroom...at 2 a.m....and you can't find it? Then what? It's a heck of a lot easier to be terrified of a bear in your bedroom at 2 a.m. - you can see that guy and basically pee your pants of fright (fortunately I haven't been in this kind of predicament). But how do you manage getting some sleep even though that bug is buzzing around your head? Frankly speaking, I wait for it to land and smack it. Done. And I'm done with that metaphor as well.

I think that learning grace and patience are the two newest items I want to tackle. I lack both. I want to obtain the grace so that I may move through these difficult days without creating bigger problems (like stubbing my toe for the third time) and I want to learn patience in order to understand that rough days are inevitable and having patience to get through it makes it a heck of a lot easier.

The lesson, sure, is that if it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger, but the bigger lesson is how are you going to manage the challenge? I choose patience and grace. What do you choose?