…and have yourself a Dee-dah Day!

That’s the exact word I got from the Lord this morning.  As previously stated, it’s been an intense few weeks of wrestling with what God expects from me as His follower.  Intense and a bit exhausting.  And this morning during my time with the Him, I was reading through a few Proverbs.  I ran across one that essentially said, “Don’t worry.  Be happy.”  I didn’t think much of it at the moment other than, “Bob Marley would agree.”  I read through the rest of the chapter, jotting notes in the margin in reference to the one’s that pointed out things I need to “fix” in my life.  Then I closed it, leaned my head back against the uncomfortable, pleather couch cushion and closed my eyes to pray.


My coffee was [apparently] not quite stout enough this morning to clear out the cob webs in my mind left from a miraculous full night’s sleep and I couldn’t seem to reign all my thoughts in to really focus on talking with the Lord.  So, I gazed through the one source of natural light in our living area and admired the pretty blue sky.  I don’t like a lot of things about the state I live in currently but I do love the perfect, clear blue skies.  The sun was just peering out from behind the lines and lines and lines of rooftops and soaking everything it touched in fantastic, beautiful light.  And then because of the perfect shade of blue the sky was wearing, I imagined that it was February in Louisiana – the grandest of all the states.  February, when it is still crisp and cool but if you sit outside in direct sunlight on a perfectly clear day, you reach the perfect level of warmth. It’s like the sun penetrates you and you just want to lay down right where you are and rest.  Letting the sun fill you right back up after its long winter absence.


And I imagined that the sun was God and I was laying down at his big, well manicured feet [but do you think God’s feet are actually well manicured or dirty, calloused, and warn?] to rest a while.


And then “Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes.  Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes.  Silver white winters that melt into springs.  These are a few of my favorite things.”  And on and on the lyrics kept cycling, getting all tangled up and intermingled with each other.  And I was thinking, “Well that’s very odd.  I haven’t watched The Sound of Music in forever.”  And suddenly I heard the Holy Spirit whisper very clearly, “Take a break from the wrestling and have a Dee-Dah Day.”  What in the heck is a Dee-Dah Day?  Well, according to John Ortberg in The Life You’ve Always Wanted, it’s a day in which you do all of your favorite things so that you can practice the discipline of joy in your life.


So I did.  Wearing a dress that I love.  Listening to a CD that makes me smile.  Drinking a Large McDonald’s Sweet Tea.  And enjoying an IKEA walk-through.  Amidst it all were a few setbacks – forgotten feminine hygiene products, two leaky Miss Magnificent diapers, and the most sweltering weather imaginable, but I refused to let them ruin my Dee-Dah Day!


Take a break.  Have a Dee-Dah Day.  That’s a direct order from the Holy Spirit himself!  Tomorrow you can resume the wrestling.