Reset the Day

From the Positively Sunny website, written by a great colleague of mine from years gone by … How do you turn your day around? Do you ever wish you could re-start your day? It’s easier to start my day over when I have a ritual to turn things around … the act of doing something allows me to reset my inner mood. I’ve found that simply saying that I’m going to start over and saying a prayer, asking my higher power to help me, works.

Good advice. Days come and go, and many don’t go the way we expected. It isn’t that they become utterly terrible … I’m not talking about the days that are truly horrible in our lives. I speak of the “everyday” day, and of that moment when the day turns and the mood changes in an unexpected way. It isn’t the same day, all of a sudden.

I remember a day in the 70’s like it was yesterday … I was on the way to work, in a good mood, driving my brother’s car because my car was in the shop, driving through the snowstorm. And then the traffic ahead of me stopped and I rammed into the back of a car, sliding helplessly all the way. I did all the right things with the other driver, the police … but that isn’t really what I remember.

What has stayed with me all these years, almost 35 of them at this point, is the sick feeling I had all of that day. I could not shake it. It was the proverbial black cloud you hear about, a crushing burden that day. No matter what I did at work, it was always there. But at that time, I didn’t at all have the power of prayer.

Prayer, even a brief one, is the salve that soothes the day. I rarely have those dark moments now that I do see that He can help me control my thoughts and feelings. Life is short and every moment is precious, so it is easier now to take a longer view. Is that because of my age or maturity, or is it a new gift created through my greater focus on prayer? Some of all, I expect … but no matter the reason, it does make almost every day a better one … thanks go to my Why Catholic group for helping me understand the power of prayer.