Manic Monday?

As I walked out this morning to get in my car, I realized that it was raining. I walked to my car and I could feel, my freshly curled and styled hair getting wet, when I got to the car, for whatever reason, today was the day that I had difficulty getting my key in the door to unlock the car. I got in the car and was getting everything settled and I thought that I was ready, I reached for my protein bar and coffee… ugh! I left my coffee in the house. I turned the car off, took my keys, stirred the dogs up as I opened the door and walked back in, tripped over a boot when I took one step too far in the dark before turning into the kitchen, got my coffee, walked back to the car while getting a third coat of rain on my hair, got into the car and left the house.

I was tired this morning and with the rain and dark, I kept fighting sleep but finally made it to the office. When I turned my computer on, Amazon music opened with a suggested playlist- “Bad day pick-me up.”

It seems that everyone has trouble with Mondays, those of us blessed enough to have a Monday to Friday job anyway. The weekends are packed full of trying to get things done, housework, laundry, shopping, meal planning for the week (hopefully) and playing catch up on everything that didn’t get done during the week. Weekends also are times to enjoy and have fun, take a road trip, get together with family and friends, attend church but all of it seems to leave us exhausted on Monday morning. We know this is the case, they even write songs about it, a simple google search brought up over 30, but the one that always comes to my mind is Manic Monday by the Bangles.

As I hear my coworkers getting the morning started, it seems that everyone has had the typical Monday morning, theme days forgotten for school age children, lunches forgotten, purses left at home and I have even heard the phrase, ”Boy, have we had a Monday!”-

Does any of this sound familiar? Maybe you too have had a morning full of tiredness, mishaps, and things forgotten?

Of course, in the big picture, none of this really matters. If I were to hear that a family member was in the hospital, I would shift into another mode of concern, assistance, communicating with other family members to make sure that I was up to date on the status of the patient, we would be in prayer and if it was serious, I would be packing a bag and heading to Tennessee to be there with my family. My less than perfect morning would be completely disregarded and forgotten. It would be of no importance.

Isn’t it amazing and even crazy to see how quickly something that is front and center on your mind and even consuming can become trivial and insignificant? When I stop and think about that, it shakes me awake and makes me stop and think- well if that is the case, then why am I giving this irritation or hiccup any attention at all?

I should mention that before I walked out the door to leave this morning, I woke up to a warm house, I had some sweet and silly playfulness with my husband s we went about our morning routine, I had a few minutes of love and snuggles from my puppies and my husband and I were able to begin our day by having devotions together. We were both sleepy and wanted to stay in bed, but overall, the getting ready part of the morning held some sweet and loving moments.

This is just an example of a morning, but how often do we get caught up in trivial circumstances, misunderstandings, disagreements and last minute changes? How long does it take to distract our focus from being Christ centered to situation centered? Sometimes it might not even be that you have taken the time yet to spend some time with God that day, but your mood is good and you are ready to take on the day and then something happens to distract you, and you or I allow it to change our mood, our prospective and our attention?

We have got to learn to take our thoughts (and following our thoughts- our actions) captive. I need to be aware when I am being distracted, feeling wronged, unappreciated and invisible. These are all things that serve as a rapid and dangerous descent. We need to stop in the moment, reevaluate the situation, give the hurt feelings, the thoughts of neglect, and the sense of being overwhelmed to God. Hand them right over! As soon as we release that armful of lies and hurt, we should reach for the steering wheel of attitude, go ahead and do the granny grip, with hands tightly held at 10 and 2 and steer that buggy straight up- there is no side trip to the mire today!

This is something that I struggle with often. It seems like every time that I feel like the road is smooth and I know where I am aimed, I hit a pothole and allow myself to be detoured. Perhaps you feel the same? I am leaving you with two verses today, that seem to be speaking loudly to me about this pitfall.

I am going to ‘post it note’ these in my line of vision this week and commit them to memory. Join me?

Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes.

Ephesians 4:23 (NLT)

[ He Is Your Life ] So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that’s where the action is. See things from His perspective. Colossians 3:1-2 (The Message)

May you be richly blessed this week!