The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Through God's goodness, we're reading through Job at daily Mass right now. Except for the fact that the feast of the Guardian Angels was celebrated instead, yesterday's first reading would have been Job 1:6-22, with the Devil's cavalier and chilling remark that he was "roaming the earth and patrolling it." (Don't you get a feeling for his personality from that line?) Job's world falls apart: crops, cattle, children, all swept away in cruelty, chaos and violence. And he says "The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away, blessed be the Name of the Lord." Today in Job 3, he laments "why was I ever born?" I peeked and tomorrow Job tells his friends "If I appealed to Him and He answered my call, I could not believe that He would hearken to my words!"

Been there, done that. I didn't sleep, Father didn't show up for Mass (power failure, not his fault, we had a Communion Service instead), and then my day of work was a parade of pratfalls, humiliating work mistake after interpersonal blunder after diet destruction after sandbagging by fellow staff after stern email lecture from senior manager. I tried repeating between gritted teeth Job's line of "blessed be the Name of the Lord" and I got zip comfort, no consolation from it. But that's faith for you: we seek the "Lord of consolations, not the consolations of the Lord."

The Lord was good enough to give me a door to my office, so I could close it and have a nice old-fashioned cry, which was a terribly mature thing to do, no?

We are so fickle and weak - nobody pulled out my toenails, nobody in my family died, I was forgiven and understood and complimented during all the awfulness, but still I felt small and I HATE feeling small.

From the fear of being humiliated, Jesus, dear Lord, deliver me!

For an encore, I figure I'll round out the evening by setting fire to my hair. Hope your days went better than mine - but both were blessings, I trust and know.