Elise has said that twice today:  “This is my worst day ever!”  Of course, when you’re 5 it doesn’t take many bad things to erase all the wonderful things that  happen in a day.  Come to think of it, that may not have anything to do with being 5.  🙂

It has been an excellent day actually, but ended with an adventure.  Elise went to Bible School this morning while I was at the store for a half day (our first day on our grand opening sale).  We had a record number of customers at the store, so when I came home and sat down with Elise to eat lunch I shared the good news with her.  She’s been very interested in “The Grand Sale” as she calls it.  So interested that she has been more than willing to pray at bedtime so that she can pray for the sale.  I’m surprised as it has taken so much of my time this week to get ready for it, that I haven’t been able to do anything extra with her.  Anyway, I shared the good news with her so she would know that God was answering her prayers and I said we should thank him for that, so she asked to pray and told God thank you for answering her prayers about the sale, and asked that it would keep going well, and also thanked him for helping her have a good time at Bible School.  It was a very grown-up prayer and I was so proud of her.

Her day had obviously not started out badly, because she talked to me for quite some time about all the things she had done at Bible School and brought me the invitation that they had given her for the program tomorrow night.  She was disappointed of course that we won’t go to the program, but didn’t seem too upset about it.

I worked at getting caught up on online orders during Elise’s naptime and then after nap, Tio (Herbie) came to play with the kids while I ran to the post office.  She talked him into letting her watch a cartoon.  Sometime during the afternoon came the first rendition of “This is my worst day ever,” but to be honest I don’t know what it was about.  I think she hurt herself or something.

John called a little before supper to let me know I needed to bring the keys back to him so he could lock up, and I told him how I had forgotten to thaw the meat for supper.  We decided to meet him at the office, lock up, and then go out to eat, something Elise was thrilled about.  My mom had already picked up our car to use to transport those going to a wedding in Pennsylvania to the airport tomorrow morning.  We are supposed to pick up her car at the shop tomorrow morning.  In the meantime, we have John’s Dad’s truck.  So, I loaded the kids in the truck, letting Elise be a big girl and sit up front with me, while Will sat in the back seat.  When we were getting out of the truck at the store, Elise burned her leg on the seatbelt and I’m sure felt that this reflected badly on the whole day.

We eventually got to Callahans where we enjoyed a good supper.  Elise assured us that this was her favorite restaurant, partly because of the good food, and partly because there is a horse painted on the wall in the entryway.  Around 7:00, slightly past Will’s bedtime, and nearing Elise’s we loaded back into the truck and pulled out onto Hwy. 412 to head home.  In the turning lane before John had a chance to merge into traffic the truck completely died and spilled oil all over the road.  John tried several times to restart it with no luck.  Elise, of course, was starting to stress and said she “doesn’t like this day!”  We prepared to have John push the car through traffic into a nearby parking lot, when thankfully two firemen in a small pickup stopped to help.  They stopped traffic for us and helped up push the truck to safety.  Then they gave us a cramped ride home.  Elise said that she thought firemen only helped with fires, but they said they tried to help anyone who needed it.

We got home safely, and Elise is still convinced that the day was no good, even though it ended up OK.  She said she was scared, and I don’t blame her, it was a little scary.  Although it would have been scarier had not John been with us, and had the firemen not stopped to help.

I encourage you to read this story carefully and see how many good things outweigh the few bad things that happened today.  Perhaps next time you feel like you are having the “worst day ever,” you will be able to see some good in it as well.