Today was a bad day.

I got off to a bad start, didn’t sleep well, forgot my coffee, and wasn’t seeing eye to eye with anyone. The printer was jamming at work. This was supposed to be a cooking post, but as you can maybe tell. THAT recipe did not turn out... I forgot to send in a form and apparently in my half dazed state of getting ready this morning only remembered to put eye shadow on one side of my face reminding me of the batman villain two-face as I looked in the mirror.

I laughed as I remembered another time I was looking in the same mirror.

It was March 2015. My parents had just moved to start their new mission in Arkansas. I had just started a new job, new college, and had met this guy. He was everything I could imagine, he loved the Lord, had a great sense of humor and made me smile from ear to ear. I wasn’t one to let my guard down, but I could see him being in my future…for a long time. Needless to say I wasn’t prepared for the text that would send me into a hot mess of an emotional roller coaster.

“I’m going to be gone this weekend. I got accepted into a PHD program and I am going to tour the college.”
I replied, “that’s sounds so exciting! I’ll be praying I’m so excited for you”
(I have since admitted that I lied I wasn’t excited.)
What I really wanted to say was nothing as graceful.

Being in a meeting I hoped that the 50 shades of implosion on my face would be disguised as a sunburn on my fair skin. I raced to the bathroom after the meeting shut the door of the bathroom stall behind me. My pantyhose got caught in the door. So there I was playing a sick game of twister in a bathroom stall trying not to fall into the toilet as I tried to get my pantyhose out of the door.

I shed about three hundred tears in a bathroom stall completely aware that it probably made the bathroom sound like an asylum to any employee that had the misfortune of needing to use the restroom while I was having my teenage crisis. I told myself to pull it together and after I peeked under the stalls to make sure that no one who had heard me crying would see who I was. I had only been working at my job for three months at the time and I didn’t want to be pegged as the hot mess. I straightened my skirt and went to the mirror.

You’ve only been dating for two weeks pull yourself it’s not that big of a deal don’t you dare let him know you’ve been crying. I grabbed a piece of chocolate from my purse, put my stringy hair back up in its bun and then fixed the tear stains in my foundation with the compact from my purse. I was constantly reminding myself that I could hide behind a glass of peppermint tea when I got home. “Crap, I told my parents about him….my first boyfriend flees the state after two weeks…..”

After I pulled myself together I asked God why he would allow such a crappy day. Then I thanked God for good friends and chocolate.

However, while I was wallowing in my teenage crisis God had a different plan. That crappy day would turn into the best day of my life. As is turns out my future husband was not going to scout out the college instead he had gone on the trip to give the overseeing Professor the courtesy touring the facility letting him know why he didn’t why he wouldn’t be joining the program. "He had to see about a girl." For those who understand the reference, yes, Good Will Hunting is his favorite movie. Gods plan was greater than my teenage emotional roller coaster could conceive.

Funny isn’t it? How on our bad days we tend to question God the most? Now I thank God for the bad days. Not because they bring me joy or because I can see the bright side in those moments, but because the darkest dawns often lead to the brightest days. On our darkest days we tend to questions Gods plan the most, but my salvation came on the darkest day of humanity. God sent his son to die for me. He would have to watch His son take on the sins of the world. It wasn’t fun it wasn’t joyous, but the darkest day of humanity was the day my salvation would come. His grace and love for me is more than I would ever be able to comprehend. Now on my bad days I remind myself of God’s grace and love. That now is not forever and he had the greatest plan. Even if my teenage crisis would have been a crisis God would have still been good. God has a reason for the dark in the dawn, but most times it takes us awhile to see.

In the meantime, there's still chocolate and peppermint tea.