OATMEAL DAYS

It's not always the red-flag crisis days that are hardest to take. It's the "oatmeal days." The ordinary, "zero" days of little or no consequence. The ho-hum days filled with nothing of any particular interest. Colorless. Uninteresting. Unfascinating. Unspectacular. And unfun. The days everyone deals with.

We cope. We wend our way through the tangle of tedious activity and sandpaper people scattered through our day and get applause, because coping is expected.

Not so during the red-flag crisis times. People tend to rally behind us with loving support. We're lifted above the crisis and enabled beyond human comprehension at times.

On oatmeal days, after a crisis has peaked, it may seem as if friends have forsaken us, as if God doesn't care. But the reality will be that life has merely pushed us and our friends one step further in the Christian growth-walk.

The God of the crisis times is the God of oatmeal days, too. Because He said He is. Because He keeps His promises -- always. Because we can't get along without Him. And because we wouldn't want to if we could.

-- Unknown, quoted by Barbara Johnson in So, Stick a Geranium in Your Hat and Be Happy!

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