When All Wrong is Alright

It's been one of those days-- well, a couple of days, really. The handle to our car door broke. We moved mountains to borrow a car, scrambled to get out the door this morning to our doctor's appointment (to that wonderful pediatrician all the way across town), to drop off that trusty old car of ours. One thing after another: a lost wallet, a dirty diaper, a muddy dog. And then when we had finally let out a sigh of relief, when we had imagined that we were in the clear, the final blow: that appointment that we had thought was today was tomorrow at 9:15. It was just becoming comical-- a comedy of errors.

As our morning routine had been going so wrong, Ben and I had started listing things we were thankful for, things that were going right-- the change in attitude kept us going, seemed to override all these little blips. But then on the silent ride home from the doctor's office, the practice of gratitude became slightly more difficult.

We came home, had some coffee, settled the kids into their routines. And flipped open to our daily Advent reading, which somehow has this way of speaking so eloquently to our current dilemmas. Today's words for us:

"Keep your eyes on the prince of peace, the one who doesn't cling to his divine power; the one who refuses to turn stones into bread, jump from great heights, and rule with great power...; the one who touches the lame, the crippled, and the blind, the one who speaks words of forgiveness and encouragement... He is the source of all peace."

And then there was a glimmer of clarity. Because there is beauty, and even sacredness in those moments that are "all wrong." Sometimes when things don't go the way they're supposed to-- when our best efforts result only in mistakes, when our hopes fall like dominoes, one after another, we enter into the realm of the divine. A divinity that came not through power, but meekness, who did not cling to divinity, but chose powerlessness. That divinity is the source of all peace.