More Trick than Treat

Yesterday was Halloween, a traditionally festive day of fun and celebration. And it had a bit of that. But mostly, it sucked.

The day started with a sense of excited and anticipation, as I was scheduled to preach at the church where I am doing my internship. I had been wrestling with a passage from Isaiah 1 for about a month and it was ready to come out, ready to be birthed to the world. In our church the priest always reads the Gospel passage for the day just prior to the sermon. So as our priest was finishing the passage, I stepped into the fellowship hall, grabbed my Bible, notes, and the music stand I was going to preach from, and stood in the doorway ready for her to welcome me to the front.

But that never happened. Instead, she stepped to the pulpit and began to preach. She had forgotten that I was supposed to preach that Sunday. I was devastated, and slowly slinked back into the fellowship hall, eyes welling up with anger, disappointment, and sadness. I then spent the next 45 minutes hiding from people in the parking lot, bathroom, and Sunday school areas, processing my disappointment over not being able to share my heart, anger at her apparent thoughtlessness, embarrassment that some in the church had most likely noticed me standing in the doorway, and sadness over unfulfilled expectations in my internship. Obviously some of these thoughts were a bit over-reactive in the moment, but at the same time, I continue to be affected by these emotions nearly 24 hours later.

It went something like this! Ugh!

My day quickly improved through a great second worship service and some mountain biking on a beautiful Seattle day. But the day didn't stay good for long. As I was returning from mountain biking, I drove straight into our parking area with my bike on our roof rack and ripped the entire roof rack off the car. I was listening to the radio and hurrying to go hang out with some friends and simply forgot that my bike was on the roof. While my bike is fine and most of the roof rack is not damaged, the car has some scratches and scuffs and I will have to replace some parts of the roof rack before it can be used again. So frustrating.

The day was partially redeemed by a fun evening watching movies with 2 of my best friends, but I don't think anything could have fixed the horror that was my day. On a day that is supposed to be joyous and fun, I definitely received more trick than treat.