I Need Theology for Days Like This

It started like any other Monday, except for the glaring fact it was technically a Tuesday. Whatever it felt like, it was the first day back to school after a long weekend. A long weekend four of the six of us had battled the stomach flu, myself included, I might add.

In the normal hustle bustle of getting two kids ready for school, one ready for preschool, and the fourth dressed in something he would undoubtedly stain and ruin, my eldest daughter excitedly tells me that today is, in fact, her “Superstar Day!”

I feel the tension start in my shoulders.

Being Superstar just means you’re the teacher’s official helper for the day, but it also means you CANNOT be late for school. If you’re late then you won’t be able to help with all sorts of vital beginning of the day protocol, so your turn is skipped.

It also means that my eldest will now be reminding me every two minutes all morning that we can’t be late. Mom, we really really can’t be late! Mom. Mommy. Mom. Mom. MOM! Not that this will help her in any way to be able to find the shoes that have disappeared or brush her teeth thoroughly and efficiently. It means she will be an emotional wreck tearing through the house apoplectic in search for her shoes and bemoaning the very idea she would need to attend to details like teeth brushing in the face of such trials as these.

I hastily make lunches and throw them into the open backpacks mercifully hanging on their hooks where they’re supposed to be. As I do I catch glimpse of my eldest’s homework folder looking fuller than in should after a long weekend. I curse in my head as I realize it’s the class memory verses I (in a moment of nobility and temporary insanity) volunteered to correct weekly and send back in on Mondays.

I race to the kitchen to grab a red pen and glance at the clock. Seven minutes, I got this. Somehow in the blur of the vomit spattered weekend, last week’s homework schedule with the official verse must have been thrown away. So, I flip through the stack to find the Smart Kid’s paper and begin correcting the rest off it.

Mom! What are you doing?! Mom, we have to go! Moooooom we can’t beeee laaaaate!! Mom. Mom. Mommy. Mom. MOM!

I yell to gather the troops. I even manage to keep my cool when I realize the preschooler has just been doing who-knows-what for the last half hour wandering in her underwear, rolls in last and looks at me like she has no idea what the fuss is about. I redirect her to the clothes I have repeatedly asked her to put on all morning, and have her big sister help her because I cannot have her looking over my shoulder one second longer. The toddler is sitting on the floor screaming that I won’t let him destroy the stack of freshly corrected papers I’m quickly collating. And my elder son is blissfully oblivious having an imaginary battle wielding his Power Ranger morpher.

Miraculously it is only one minute past the ideal out-the-door time as we stumble out into the wide world waiting for us. My eldest sprints ahead to throw open the door of the car. She freezes and turns around to stare at me, eyes bulging. MOM!

And then I too see it. The ginormous dresser my husband had picked earlier in the weekend. And forgot to remove.

The tightly wound rubber band holding the lid on my pressure cooker of emotions was about to snap. I grab for my cell phone so I can share this moment with my wonderful husband, remember there are children present, and send off a quick sarcastic passive-aggressive text instead.

I throw open the broken tailgate which comes crashing back down on top of me. Second try I am able to force it to stay open. With all the strength of my rage I grab the dresser, rip it from the back of the car, and single handedly carry it to the house.

Well that was the original plan anyway. Before I realized it wasn’t the flimsy particle board Ikea decor I am accustomed to. I imagine going full beast-mode and just kicking the thing onto the street and leaving it there. I’m pretty sure it would make a very satisfying crack as it hit…

Gah! Head back in the game. It’s Superstar Day! As if I could have forgotten with my daughter whimpering from the sidewalk.

I move three car seats into the still standing middle row and, as I’m buckling the littlest, shout for my daughter to get in the front seat. She freezes and looks at me with eyes the size of the dirty bowls of cereal left forgotten in the kitchen. But isn’t that illegal?!

Yep it is. You want to be Superstar or not kid?! WE HAVE TO GO.

She sidles cautiously into the passenger seat; stiff, trying to looking taller than she is.

We’re off.

Now comes the awkward moment where we all know what time it is. It’s the time I sing the silly song I made up before we talk about a Bible verse and pray together. I do not feel like a happy, clappy Christian this morning. For a brief second I think maybe this morning I’ll just skip it. I don’t want to be fake and my kids will know the difference. I feel the Spirit turn inside me.

So I pray (out loud) asking God to help me forgive others the way He has forgiven me. That I would live my life the way He would if He were me.

My eldest asks to read the Bible verse from her new (and first ‘official’) Bible she’s been carrying everywhere since she got it. She chooses Proverbs 31:29-30:

“Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.”

Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.

Of all the verses… I grit my teeth. I do not feel like dealing with the Proverbs 31 woman right now.

We skid into the parking lot one minute late and I mentally pray it’s close enough. My daughter jumps from the car and sprints off as I’m speaking the words of the Lord I speak every morning over my kids before they leave the car:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Love others as yourself, for this sums up the law and the prophets. For you, Emma Grace Marsden, and you, Logan Vance Marsden, have been called to make disciples of all people, teaching them everything Jesus has taught you. And surely He is with us always even until the end of the age! And remember: Mommy loves you!”

Usually Emma rolls her eyes and taps her foot impatiently, but she’s already long gone. Logan, still so blissfully unaware of the crazy storm raging around him, smiles at me. “Love you too, Mom,” and bounds off to class.

I read on Twitter recently a man, whom I would like to give the benefit of the doubt was trying to be funny, comment that the topics of most interest to women in the Bible have to do with abortion, marriage, and pregnancy. It set my teeth on edge.

No no no no no. No. NO! I need the entire Word of God at my disposal if I’m to have any hope of maintaining any semblance of sanity on terrible Tuesdays. I need good theology to get me through the tough daily grind of just being me. Otherwise I might as well just take Mrs. Job’s advice to her afflicted husband and just curse God and die already.

The Lord does not offer me a stone when I ask Him for bread. He offers a feast! He multiplies my weak efforts. It is by His strength I gain by knowing and loving His Word that I survived Tuesday morning to make it to Tuesday afternoon. Where at WinCo my screaming toddler went possessed on me and threw two dozen packages of tortillas into the cart in his fit of rage at being restrained in the cart seat while my back was turned.

Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.