Let's start at the beginning, shall we? Today was an ministry-wide Day of Prayer. This means that we pray in groups of various sizes four times during the workday. Most people appreciate working in a place that allows them to express their religion freely, but for me prayer is a private thing. If someone I know asks me to pray for a situation, I will be glad to do that at home in my private time. Praying in groups feels like showing off and distracts me from talking to God.
Turning my prayers into a performance isn't the only problem I have with the Day of Prayer. The 16-year-old in me rebels against being ordered to do things like that. If they wanted to give us the option to go into one of the prayer rooms at designated times, that would have been easier to stomach. Making prayer mandatory just seems wrong. The memo my department manager sent this afternoon made it worse. He said that he wanted ". . . my staff to be seated in the dining hall, not standing out in the hallway." That sounds innocent, but it made me feel like he wanted to make sure everyone saw that HIS staff was really holy and sat right in the midst of the prayer group. Either that, or he wanted to show off how obedient his staff is.
Add to all that the fact that I have trouble being in large crowds, and you can see how the Day of Prayer would be uncomfortable for me. The small groups where we prayed with just our teams weren't too bad, but the afternoon session with over 100 employees crammed into the dining hall was too much. I lasted about 15 minutes; once the speaker asked us to find a stranger in the crowd and share our testimony, I started feeling anxious and left before someone could try to talk to me. I stood out in the hall for the rest of the session. Luckily, we were able to go straight home after it was over.
Once ABM picked me up and I was able to calm down a bit in the car, we went to get pizza for dinner. While we were waiting for it, I went to the grocery store next door to buy a few things so I could cook for the kids over the weekend. At the checkout, I swipe my debit card, the computerized cash register goes wonky and reboots! I thought it was funny, but ABM was not amused that he had to wait so long for me to check out. The A in his nickname stands for Angry for a reason :-).
When we got home, I was looking forward to relaxing while the kids were at their weekly activities. I took off my clothes and got in bed to watch Rachael Ray. Just as I got settled, ABM called to tell me that he would not get back from M and DJ's activities in time to pick up the twins from church. So I had to get dressed and walk to the church to get them. You've read my struggles with fitness before, so you know that I am woefully out of shape. The 35-minute round trip almost killed me. As I was trying to make it up the last hill, C1 and I kept saying, "Valkyrie is about to die." You are as geeky as we are if you know what video game that comes from.
None of this stuff is earth-shattering. I'm just not in the habit of dealing with so many little annoyances in the same day. "When it rains, it pours" has come to life for me lately.
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