I had a shit day…have you had a shit day?..we’ve had a shit day.               –P!nk

So yesterday I dealt with fecal explosions, plans gone awry, and petulant children…then I went and picked up The Kid. (Ba-dum-dum.) My current workplace is a temporary station of sorts for me as The Husband and I make our plans regarding family size (insert “and God laughs” joke here). Which is funny, because the office building to which I report three days a week is also a temporary station for the company that owns it–and you can tell. Multiple bathrooms were non-functional by yesterday afternoon; our computer system went down briefly; a light exploded and left us examining teeth in the relative dark. By the time I left without letting the door hit my ass on the way out, I couldn’t wait to see a friendly face: TK’s, grinning upon my arrival.

We waited on the front porch for The Husband to get home, TK bouncing on the step below me as I held his arms. It was a moment full of perfection: the breezy temperature, the giggling baby, the home behind us and the man on the way. There are times when I have to squeeze gratitude out with both hands, breaking a sweat with the effort of giving it, and there are moments when I don’t: when I see gifts everywhere, when the trajectory of my life appears to be a straight line leading here. I breathed in fall and baby shampoo and exquisite joy.

Our elderly neighbor appeared in his yard and I waved, picking up TK to let him take a look because he is, after all, The World’s Greatest Granddad (according to his sweatshirt). He marveled at TK’s growth and cuteness, then TH arrived on the scene. We asked how he and his wife are doing and learned for the first time that she has Alzheimer’s. We talked a bit longer, then went to our separate homes.

Not until this morning did I lose it, taking a moment to consider the slow, painful loss that our neighbor faces daily. What a twisted way to say goodbye. Anger rose up in my heart, as it often does when I’m trying to avoid true emotion, and I weighed my options: wiping my eyes and going to the gym; continuing to read my Bible as if nothing had happened; lashing out at God for allowing such suffering. None of the above. I know what my neighbor believes; he and his wife brought cookies and an Olive Garden gift card and an invitation to church when we moved in, and at the time I rolled my eyes internally (I’m quite good at that, like I am at yawning with a closed mouth), my own faith notwithstanding, at the “go to church” attitude of “Christians” everywhere as a sign of spiritual fitness and an answer to all problems. At the time, I pegged them as that generic type of believer–I know way too many–who define faith according to behavior and attendance; who believe because they were told to and everyone else they know does. Who know nothing of painful desperation and loneliness and doubts and a faith that is questioned and rejected and resurrected not in spite of, but because of plans being unmade and life turning to shit.

Now I see their car pull out of their driveway on Sunday mornings and I realize I was wrong about them. True faith isn’t for the simple. It’s for the chest-beaters and tooth-gnashers and “Why, God”-ers who stick around even when there’s not an answer they like. Grace isn’t a bed of flowers as often as it is a rock that will break you before it remakes you. It’s not for the “click LIKE if you love JESUS!” or “God is good because I have a pumpkin spice latte and passed my trig test” set; it’s for the world-weary, bruised and battered. Belief is an act of bravery. It is knowing that as you engage in a jag of ugly crying on your couch, you are not crying alone. That the one crying with you is more broken up about this whole mess the world has gotten into than you could ever be; that one of you has a plan to turn it all around and it’s not you. That the sad will become untrue according to a timetable beyond my imagining but until then, redemption will occur in the small moments. In the ordinary, poop-smeared days. And on that note, excuse me while I go to pick up TK.

It’s me when you catch the fragrance of spring, when tall trees sway

It’s me in the cold winter sting in the alleyway

I am the sigh while all creation groans and waits.

(Melanie Penn, “Ordinary Day”)