This is one of those days that feels like it’s being squeezed from both ends and it’s going to burst somewhere in the middle. Marti sat up in bed like a bolt early this morning and started listing things that needed to be done. I realized it was really bad when a little later in the kitchen she asked me, very kindly, if I could possibly run out front and get the morning paper while she was standing right next to it on the counter. A woman of lists, she’s already got one from the night before, but she’s adding to it every minute and feeling overwhelmed. Life feels like it is crushing down on us.

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed… (2 Corinthians 4:8)

And I can’t help but think of this verse because of the obvious pressure and crushing feeling. Oh yeah? And how are we not crushed? Tell me again, Jesus, because I think I forgot.

It’s in the verse before it about being an earthy vessel with a treasure inside, and the treasure, from the verse before that, is “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” Well great, how does that help me?

It helps me focus on the big things – the eternal things – the things that will still be there at the end of the day regardless of what was or was not accomplished. God’s in His heaven; Christ is in my heart. Who knows what He has on His agenda today that we don’t even have on our list because He hasn’t told us. It helps me to remember that maybe if we are crushed hard enough some of Him will come out of us for the good of someone else.

And here’s one really great thing about the way this day will end. Whatever happens, we will be at some point sitting somewhere in a restaurant to be determined in southern California, raising a glass to our now 31-year-old daughter who is the most incredibly gifted, impossibly insane, completely unmanageable woman who has already medically (as an emergency room P.A.) and physically (as a lifeguard) saved countless lives with her compassion for the poor and her persistence in making sure everyone gets treated like they truly matter in the world because when she listens to them and looks them in the eye, they know they do. Hands down, it’s Anne Fischer’s birthday, and that really counts. We did something good here and we can’t even take any credit for it. I’m hard pressed to think there is anything more worth all this than that.