It was the Best of Times, It was the Worst of Time

Have you ever felt out of it? I mean, drained, mentally exhausted and emotionally deflated. (I see your head nodding in affirmation!). That’s exactly how I felt the entire day. I just didn’t get out of bed, and there, immediately I was met by the ogre du jour! No, it all starts and begins in incremental phases, one-by-one, these encounters, conversations, or/and daily non-scheduled confrontations, or worse, disappointments, even with the appointments themselves. Some days are good…and some days are just plain ugly and yucky. Yesterday was just such a day for me.

Because I know the midweek bible study is on for the evening, later on that same day, I am extremely, and acutely sensitive to be ‘careful’ in what I do, what people say or do to me, and what circumstances want to do to me, thus, disrupting and robbing me of the joy in sharing the Word, dispensing to others for the mid-week bible-study, what I believe the Lord has dispensed to me first.

After leaving my orthodontist for my bi-weekly wire-tightening, I sensed right there and then, ‘Oh, oh, it aint going to be good day!’ I just felt it—not only through the pain in the expected ache to come, but also knowing that my next scheduled, immediate appointment was to my podiatrist, out in Anaheim, near the Angels baseball stadium, which meant commuting through the infamous, 55 Frwy., the ‘Orange-crush’ to get there.

My arthritic toes have been throbbing lately with so much pain, that the initial and reason for the consultation was to cop some pain-medication to alleviate the discomfort. In these same medical offices, both, my orthopedist and knee-specialist (scheduled arthroscopic-surgery for July) are housed. The scene was bad. All three of the doctors know that I am a pastor! Unbeknown to me, I didn’t realize that the laptop my podiatrist possessed had ALL the goods on me! Every prescription prescribed was there, right there in the glowing screen! It made me look as if I was trying to play all of these medical wizards into ‘scoring’ some pain-medication. I profusely apologized, actually supplicated, trying to convince my young professional those were not my intentions. I walked away, no meds in hand, quite a bit embarrassed.

Once home, my mouth is now in its full-on, expected pain. The wire-adjustment is doing its beneficial torture. Eating is now impossible—it’s a torture, really.
As I get settled, ready to resume my study for the evening, my mouth and the rest of my body aches are having a full-on conversation, strategies, really, how to make me an honorary member of the Job-family. So be it. I’ve been through this road before. Pucker-up! I say to myself, it’s all good!

While preparing my Power-point presentation, Google betrays me. Although my computers, both at home and church office, have ‘firewall and filters,’ to obstruct any incoming, undesirable images, once in a while, thanks to some deviant, "Maniako" egg-head (tech-savvy) somewhere in Cyber-land ‘sneaks’ an ungodly, irreverent image into a clean, word-search-engine. Well, you guess it! Now, my physical pain has morphed into psychological and emotional pain! All I could do was ask God for forgiveness and remembered and cited to myself Psalm 119:37. But even this worthwhile effort had a small effect of my overall psyche, I still felt ‘dirty, blemished and emotionally-wounded.’


I resume my study—but not with the usual enthusiasm and excitement…hobbling and teetering are more like it.

On my way to church, my iPod is blaring, LOUD worship music—my heart, head and soul are encouraged by the lyrics and adulation of a forgiving, merciful, long-suffering, just and loving God. Prompted by the deafening melodies, my internal, silent prayers are just spewing in rapid-fire-like: Supplication, Adoration, Forgiveness, Mercy, Confession and Acknowledgement of my earlier experiences of the day are placed before the Lord…but the time I reach the church parking lot, my entire personality, my disposition and comportment are all quickened. How? Was I faking it? (It sure felt like it!) Was I putting the best face forward, a la politicians? The emotions were genuine. I had not time to analyze myself. Just enjoy it, man. Just enjoy it, dude.

Worship starts. Loud, just like those sounds earlier inside of my car. Corporate worship is awesome. My studies, Isaiah 23-24, come to the forefront of my brain-gourd while singing of Him. God is the Highest! I am prompted to read the commencement-scriptures in Revelation 5, “Worthy is the Lamb of God who was slain, To receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing! Blessing and honor and power be to Him who sits on the throne, And the Lamb, forever and ever!
I lose it. I hate crying in front of others. But at this point, I just don’t care, though I do confess that get concerned sometimes, some people may misread my emotional expressions for something else. So be it.

The end of the service comes to its conclusion—people get saved. Lives are comforted and the Word has done what it was intended to do: A love-note from our Maker. Encouragement, burdens lifted, hope infused and peace within the hearts of His people are quite evident, not only can one feel it, one can really see it!

What a change from the morning—through it all, God, in spite of my weaknesses, my shortcomings, debilities, perforations, disabilities, God did it His way! He always does!

My heart was full of contentment: I walked out, going home, whistling the tune to ‘How sweet it is to be loved by You---I needed the shelter of someone's arms and there you were I needed someone to understand my ups and downs and there you were With sweet love and devotion deeply touching my emotion I close my eyes at night, wondering where would I be without you in my life everything I did was just a bore, everywhere I went it seems I'd been there before but you brightened up for me all of my days with a love so sweet in so many ways (Go ahead whistle it, you know the tune!)

“…not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. 1 Cor. 1:26-31