Enjoying a Sad, Mad, Bad Day

“See yourself as you really are.

Accept the good and the bad.

Only then can you truly share yourself with another.”

— Velyn Cooper

OXYMORONS can be fun and they can be tormenting, it depends on many things. Enjoying a sad day, a mad day, or a bad day may seem a ridiculous notion, but at least there is an openness of mind – and even a skerrick of humour – about it.

But conversion is what we are after. We want God to transform our day, our afternoon, our evening, and if not those, our next day. We want to rise above the clouds of the abyss or nemesis. It’s only right. It’s only justified that we would want something of the light to break into the foreseeable darkness.

If we could foresee that possibility, that out of brokenness a lighter place of soul might temporarily be enjoyed, then suddenly we commence a thought process open to that possibility. Sometimes it’s way too much, but at other times being able to encapsulate such a thought is the mastery of God over our attitudes, and even our circumstances.

Yes, it is too much of a pipedream to think that every sad, mad, or bad experience is redeemable – that we can accept. But some of these times might be made better, and how will we know unless and until we try.

Normally we will scoff at the whole concept of ‘enjoying’ something as foreign and life-giving as converting something good out of bad, structure out of that which is mad, or happiness out of what is sad.

But if we can hold our minds open and if we can risk our hearts – to feel into the possibilities – we come to be surrendered to what God may show us, because it is the will of the Lord to redeem and restore us.

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God is able to make something bad better. He can make something sad meaningful. God’s business is to bring order out of the madness. God can do all these things and more. When we imagine the power in the grace of God, we see his capacity to turn many things around. God can restore anything he chooses – yes, even the dispositions of our laments, our anger, and the evils against us.

God is a miracle worker and we only need to see his power once to believe it. All the more glory goes to God when he turns us around.

© 2014 S. J. Wickham.