I woke up on the wrong side of the hormone today. I have a sore throat. And I’m ticked off. So, therefore, I didn’t want to go to church. I reasoned that if I didn’t go, a) I could watch the message online, and b) we are having a special worship service tonight anyway, so it’s not like I would be totally blowing off church on this Sabbath. Plus, like I said, I was ticked off. So, I was plotting, whilst smoothie-making, how I could ask my husband to take the kids, since the three of them were supposed to serve today anyway, and then I could go back to bed. Then the husband and I got in a fight, and – this is so pathetic – I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of putting him in a position to say yes or no to me, or to make me feel guilty for not going to church, so I sucked it up and went.

And I really didn’t want to be there. Like, at all.

Our worship time, in the form of singing, lasted a good fifteen minutes and because of my frame of mind, it took me all I could do to simply stand up through most of the songs. (Hormonal + sore throat + ticked = a little weary.) But I stood there. I didn’t really sing that much though. But I closed my eyes. And I told Jesus that I was sorry for my attitude, saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry” over and over again. And I told him that I loved him, saying “I love you, I love you, I love you,” instead of actually singing the words. (I just might have been worshipping in spirit and truth in deeper ways than I usually do.)

And then three things happened that made me glad I went.

One, our teaching pastor reminded us from Colossians 1:11 that God wants to strengthen us so that we can endure whatever hard thing life is throwing at us. I needed to hear that.

Two, he gave this example of a fake kid named Jack (I have a Jack) from the Blackberry Campus (we go to the Blackberry Campus) who was a senior in high school (my Jack will one day be a senior in high school) who decided to get a hotel room and some alcohol after prom (gulp), and I started to cry. No one saw me or anything, but it just really hit me, hearing my sweet boy’s name plugged into a story of a situation that I fear. It was hard to hear but I needed to hear it because that reminded me to pray more about this fear of mine.

And three, I saw a friend that I have been having a hard time connecting with lately and I hugged her and tried to encourage her and listened to her all in about three minutes and told her I would pray for her.And seeing her lifted my eyes off of my hormones and sore throat and ticked-ness.

So what’s my point? Do the thing. We won’t always want to get out of bed, put on clothes, go for a run, go to our jobs, get dinner for our family, go grocery shopping, pray, read the Bible, go to church, help someone; but we need to. Just do it. Do the thing. Because, well, it’s not all about you and, also, you never, ever know what God might use to lift you up.