Good Days, Bad Days and Extremely Ugly Days

Most days I’m on a roll. Yeah, I wake up bright and radiant, with all the positivity possible and I’m ready to conquer the world. I pick up my Bible to read and it’s a feast of revelation. I dance away my chores and my voice in the bathroom can outclass any opera singer. Those are the days I hit 100 reps and over in my workouts, with my body feeling like a million dollars. I walk to work smiling, almost oblivious to the world around, I see the ills that plague the world but I’m confident that it won’t take long before things would change. Days like this my creative juices are on fire, I pick up a pen and write a painted work of art.

But there are some other days… When I crawl out of bed and walking is a struggle, days when praying is a tough chore. Days like this I drag myself to work and I just want to be alone.

There are days I’d rather stay in bed. I wake up worried, scared, and uncertain; These days it is hard to smile. I feel dull, heavy and pessimistic and it’s a struggle not to fall into self-pity. Some days it feels like things may not work out after all. I look at myself in the mirror and I feel so insignificant, I wonder how it is that someone like me can change the world. I look at the events of the nation and shivers of apprehension run through my body. I can’t help but despair at the state of things. I get scared and I wonder if the world will really ever get better like I used to believe. I wonder if the decisions I’ve made according to my standards and on account of my faith are really worth it; if the risks that I have taken in this life will really pay off.

Most days I know what I’m doing (at least I think I do), other days I’m sure I don’t. Most days my dreams appear to be an arm stretch away, other times the things I want to accomplish in this life appears so huge that I wonder if I’m out of my mind; if I really should bother. Sometimes I feel like people are beginning to get me, other times the amount of criticism I receive almost drives me to tears. Most days I’m special, other days I feel like I’m part of the problem. There are days I know God is with me, like I can literally feel my spirit bubbling with His presence, other days even I can hear the sound of my emptiness. Most days faith is the most logical thing to me but on other days, I dare to question everything I’ve ever been taught. That’s just it, on most days life is good, other days life is just… life.

But I come to realize that it’s impossible to live life on a constant high. That is a lie the TV has fed us. Some days you just can’t and it happens. You just don’t feel like and it’s not your fault, it’s not your hormones and it’s definitely not people from the village. Life is just unstable and sometimes uncertain like that. It’s like an ocean and its waves cannot stay still, all you can do is find something that is steady and grab tight to that anchor with all your life. So then the waves can toss you to and fro, they can only go so far. Few things are stable in this world; Love, Truth and Purpose, I’ve learnt they are all the same, God.

Above all things, there is only one sure and unshakable anchor and this is God. God is a constant and all that comes from Him is goodness

Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. — James 1:17

You don’t need to see the anchor to grab on to it, You don’t need to know its properties, what it is made of, what it looks like before you stake all your strength on it. If it’s steady then it will do. So I hold on to God like that: When I feel like and when I don’t, when I’m strong and hearty, when I’m tired, when I’m scared, when I doubt, even when I can’t see Him. I just hold on. This is how I make it through Good days and bad days.

From outside, you may not get to see the bad days but they are there; behind the colour filters, behind the crispy starched laundry. I may seem to know what I’m doing, where I’m headed and all that… Most times I look the part, sometimes I don’t. But these things are as inconsequential as sand grains. In God, I have my full and final assurance, God is Good and He has a plan and this takes me to sleep and tucks me in daily, through God days, bad days and extremely ugly days.

I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out — plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. — Jeremiah 29:11

Written by Chimezie Nwagbo.