Tell Me One Good Thing

• June 7, 2016
• Healthy Living

Sometimes life knocks your glass of milk over and it’s easy to see the love. But, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes the love is a lot less obvious and all you see is a mess.

When we were in high school my dear friend Baye and I lived on opposite ends of the state but we talked every day. If I was having a mess of a day she would let me vent about it, would agree that something was stupid or someone else was wrong, and then, when I was all done ranting, would say, “Now tell me one good thing.”

Yesterday just felt like a bad day. Nothing inherently bad even happened, but all I saw was a mess. I had to drive the farm truck to work and it needed gas which made me late. Since I was running late anyway I decided to go through the Starbucks drive-thru but it turns out the windows in the farm truck work as well as the windshield wipers that don’t work. (Did I mention it rained all day?) Something messed up (again) from my maternity leave so my insurance was cancelled (again) which means a phone call to HR (again). Ellie Jo had her four month vaccinations so I came home to a fussy upset baby running a fever. While rocking the fussy baby I checked the news on my phone and found out All American Rapist got off way too easy for no obvious reason besides being pretty and a fast swimmer, which makes me sad and angry and frustrated and a lot of things I haven’t figured out how to put into words yet but it didn’t make my bad day feel any more promising.

Once you’re in a bad mood it is easy for everything to seem bad. So I was squarely in the middle of a full blown pity party for one when I took Ellie Jo to our bedroom to try and quiet her down for the night.

The beauty of Tell Me One Good Thing is that it washes over you when you least expect it. Last night I was lying in the bedroom in the dark, snuggled up on the bed next to Ellie Jo, listening to hymns and watching lightening flash outside the window. I could hear Derek in the kitchen washing bottles and picking up, getting everything ready for life today. Sofie was lying on the floor next to the bed, muddy from the storm, but stretched out and content.  I don’t know if it comes from God, or the universe, or simply Baye’s voice finally working its way into my permanent psyche, but it always comes quietly and clear as a bell. “Tell me one good thing.”

That moment was perfect. That quiet moment right then in our little farm house in the midst of a storm held everything in life I love. It was this overwhelming reminder that our life, my life, is so wonderful and so sweet. All the irritating bad parts of the day slipped away. In that precious little moment nothing else mattered.

This isn’t to say life is all sunshine and roses because sometimes life really does just suck. Bad things happen to good people and it’s not fair and there are real problems in the world that hurt and feel like they will break us. But, even when we are drowning in the bad, all we can do is take things one day at a time. Tell Me One Good Thing is about finding just enough goodness to feel peace with the world until tomorrow. There is always love in the mess. Listening to the gentle voice that says, “tell me one good thing” just helps you to see it. 

Do it all with love.