For Those Annoying Weeks You’re Just Hanging on by a Thread
Someone told me at work a couple weeks ago, “You always look like you’ve got it together.”
My response?
“What you can’t see is the button to my jeans is literally holding on by a thread.”
Because TRUTH.
Actually, it was a whole annoying week of “hanging on by a thread.”
That same morning I was up before daybreak with a post-nightmare kid hovering over my bed like Chuckie. I had mildew-y laundry left in the washer overnight and unwashed pets I’d forgotten to feed the night before. I’d also forgotten about McKenna’s safety patrol meeting prior to school one day that week … the same day I’d also forgotten to pack not just Meda’s lunch, but her favorite teddy bear for a kindergarten Teddy Bear Tea Party.
And — for the love — I had majorly chipped fingernail polish. 😬 #shameful 😉
When I got home, that button on my jeans fell off completely. And nobody was there to see it but me.
Just like us sometimes. We don’t always have to have a good day. And we definitely don’t have to always LOOK like we’re having a good day or we “have it together.”
When that button fell off into my hand, I threw a mini-fit right there in my bathroom. I don’t know why that button pushed me over the edge, but I couldn’t control my frustration of the week anymore.
I said a cuss word (or two), kicked my shoes off angrily, and stomped around trying to find a new pair of jeans clean enough to respectably leave the house in.
It’s dumb, but those were my favorite and most comfortable pair of jeans. And maybe the button falling off was just the last small straw in a large pile of straw the week had thrown at me. No, none of that “straw” would kill me. Hell, it couldn’t do anything to me I wouldn’t let it.
But it did feel suffocating in that moment, even as silly as that scenario is in the grand scheme of things.
My friend’s comment had made me feel good (of course), but my jean debacle reminded me that we don’t always have to have it together. So friend, I give you full permission to NOT “have it all together.”
We have days we are very much hanging on by a thread. So when we do lose it — literally or figuratively — that’s normal.
Because LIFE, yo.
Not long after The Great Button Breakdown of 2018, I came across the popular verse from James in his New Testament letter, found in James 1:2.
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds …
Joy? Ugh – hardly.
Smelly, mildewy clothes aren’t joyful. And neither are the mini-panic attacks upon realization of forgotten meetings or lunches. And definitely not when your nails are chipped or the button falls off.
The verse immediately following James 1:2 says,
because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. (James 1:3)
Other versions mention endurance or patience instead of perseverance, but they all ultimately mean the same thing — to endure something without giving way.
I realize these small annoyances — buttons falling off, stinky clothes, forgotten meetings, or dropping lunches and teddy bears off at school — are not the life and death, make or break situations of life.
They are small and trivial. I know this.
So I want to be clear that I am absolutely not trying to diminish true, hard, and heavy life circumstances some of us are carrying right now.
But these small irritations? They can force our faith under pressure too.
I tend to believe the way we live our lives in the everyday smallness says the most our faith. Even more than those big, significant circumstances.
So the small irritations, they are the gritty annoyances that once built up, grind into our peace and sense of calm in the everyday.
And this is where we build up endurance for life — in the everyday.
I love, love, love how The Message version states this verse, James 1:2-4.
Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.
This is where our faith-life shows its true colors. While, yes, we have permission to not have it all together, we can still consider it pure joy. A gift when our days are a little more hard than we’d like them to be.
I’m working on it, considering it — all these gritty annoyances — a gift. But I’m going to keep letting it “do its work” so that I continue to grow and develop faithfully.
Though I have to admit, while I can consider it a gift or even joy when — even on the days I fall — I’m still sad my favorite jeans still haven’t been fixed yet. 😉