Forgetting to Remember
(Fairview Heights, Illinois, circa 2009)
I had a really bad day. Nothing really went wrong but I couldn’t find the hours to accomplish what I needed to do. As the day wore on and deadlines approached, my mood became worse and worse. By late afternoon I had clearly deteriorated from affably ineffective to generally curmudgeoned. I had run my emotional gas tank dry at the office; now I was about to come home with no fuel left in the tank. As I pulled into our driveway and walked into the kitchen, I brought my bad mood along with me (I should have left it at church). It was clear Melissa had enough of the both of us after about three minutes. My daughter Lydia was over and she just stayed out of my way.
As I generally stormed about the house feeling like a caged tiger, I suddenly noticed my baby grandson Maddox in the living room. He was lying on a blanket on the floor and he stopped me in my tracks. I plopped down beside him. He is so cool. He looks like all the other blondes in our tribe, has dimples like me and his hair sticks straight up. One day he is going to learn to switch hit, knock down fifteen-foot jump shots and become a mighty man of God. Suddenly all those things I needed to do didn’t seem quite so important anymore. My bad mood just seemed selfish and silly.
As I looked at him, I was reminded of the goodness of God. I thought about how blessed I am to have an incredible wife to share my life, a beautiful family, good health and a great church to serve. How could someone so blessed get so bent out of shape over so little? Sometimes we forget to remember God’s blessings. I forgot for a while but Maddox helped me remember.
-Rev. Shane L. Bishop is the Sr. Pastor of Christ Church in Fairview Heights, Illinois and the author of “Exactly As I Remember It.”
Rev. Shane L. Bishop 
Reblogged this on rememberbooks and commented:
Do you ever forget to remember?