A few days ago, I was looking through chapter titles for a certain topic in a book by one of my favorite authors, Dorcas Smucker. Her story about a not-so-ordinary day making her thankful for the ordinary, blah ones caught my attention--partly because it had to do with the topic I was searching for, but also because I was going through a few days of January blahs myself.
We were running out of propane because we'd forgotten to call in for propane, so I was cooking on the woodstove and even making homemade laundry soap on it (which is actually extraordinary and enjoyable) but it meant I wasn't baking or doing any extra laundry or much that required spigot hot water or propane.
We made waffles with the waffle iron one morning so we wouldn't be cooking on the propane stove.
And there wasn't any particularly fascinating, tragic, or wonderful news from relations to chat about on chats.
I was just doing ordinary things on cold days after chemo like editing and cooking and embroidering and dishes and gathering eggs and working on newsletters and bringing in firewood and dusting my bedroom furniture.
I realized I was wanting drama (because, for one thing, I LOVE stories!) and I had to check myself.
It was okay to have some blah days.
Drab days.
No drama days.
Because, as former Mennonite missionary Dorcas Smucker wrote about one of her days as a missionary in Canada, the drama of hitting a moose on a sub-zero-temp day on a Canadian road
Because, as former Mennonite missionary Dorcas Smucker wrote about one of her days as a missionary in Canada, the drama of hitting a moose on a sub-zero-temp day on a Canadian road
and having the van catch on fire
and having to singlehandedly get all her little children out and try to snatch some coats and blankets from the back of the van before the gas tank exploded
made her forever afterward never be ungrateful for the ordinary day!
In case you think I made up that story, here is the link to it, and I recommend you read this spell-binding story for yourself.
https://dorcassmucker.blogspot.com/2008/07/while-were-at-it-official-van-moose.html
This photo is not of the burning van about 30 years ago, but of a house fire (probably caused by arson) that Danny spent hours at yesterday. He had just passed a 2-hour online test as part of his Firefighter I or II training that very morning, and then worked at this fire site most of the afternoon, coming home with a terrible headache probably from dehydration working inside his heavy firefighter suit.
It could have been our house that burnt.
Shouldn't I be thankful for every "ordinary" day?
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