It’s been a good day.
Not that I haven’t had good days, or that most days haven’t been good days lately. But today just kind of struck me…today’s been a good day, and not even because of any particularly optimistic circumstances.
In fact, a lot of today hasn’t been 100% great.
I almost (but didn’t quite fully) burnt my quesadilla for lunch. Before that I couldn’t find a snack in the house I wasn’t allergic to.
Broke my phone a few weeks ago and got the final verdict from the repair shop today that it’s for sure beyond repair.
Rain came, which is technically good news this time of year with droughts and wildfires, but all in all the weather has been a bit gloomy today, and the sun just feels relatively dim and distant.
But today I woke up, and I felt like smiling.
Nothing particularly different from yesterday, really.
But I felt like smiling.
And when I went to the doctor’s office to get my weekly allergy injection and was waiting in the waiting area for a decent chunk of time, I smiled at a stranger and they smiled back.
Seems simple, but sometimes it feels so rare.
And when I walked out into the overcast and gloomy outdoors, I looked around, and another stranger stood waiting and looked up as I walked past. They smiled back at me, too.
Don’t know why it seems like such a big deal, but it’s so, so easy to get down sometimes. So easy to look around, try a smile, get nothing back, then just sit down and conclude the world is a gloomy place.
I mean, with how many pieces of technology and appointments and complicated logistics we all have to figure out and weave together on a daily basis, it’s no wonder things go wrong so often. It can be hard to see above the continual frustrating grind when it all seems to add up, and we’re tempted to just decide not a whole lot in this world works itself out in any kind of orderly fashion.
My chest swelling with the simple joy of exchanging a brief smile, I proceeded briskly to my car and encountered yet another stranger in the busy parking lot. They met my eyes as well, and I smiled. And what do you know? They smiled back.
Perhaps people smile back at me all the time, most days, even. But today, for some reason, it felt special.
Maybe it was just all the small joys adding up throughout the day. Maybe it was because I woke up early today. Maybe it was because I ate breakfast. Maybe it was because I opened my Bible earlier in the day than usual. Or maybe it was because I knew with all the building frustrations of the day and my typical incapability to handle even ordinary frustrations, this sudden joy couldn’t be from me.
After all, strangers do smile back from time to time. I notice it pretty frequently, too. Even muse on the interaction later, and smile to myself.
But today…it really did feel like a gift. Like there was something bright and beautiful that was hidden all along in the gloomy day, and this was my Savior’s reminder that all the painstaking frustrations and mismatching logistics in the world can’t dim that light.
God is good. So good. And just you wait, because He shows it.
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
-John 1:5 (ESV)
Faith on the Farm 