By Les Ferguson, Jr.
Columnist

Mondays are not often highly regarded in our society. We’ve all heard the clichés about having “had a Monday” as if there was something intrinsically broken about the first day of the work week.

Let me go on record as saying, I do not typically have bad Mondays! I’m generally energized and upbeat about getting stuff done early in the week.

But today, I had a bad Monday up until the moment I didn’t.

On Sunday I shared with our church family a list of items to be used in recovery and clean-up in Amory with the hopes of delivering on Thursday and taking a crew to help, too.

So today, I was a man on a mission — shopping at our local big box store for the self-same items. I was determined to be a good example and lead from the front. I’m not the best or most efficient shopper especially when I’m looking for things in seemingly all the wrong places.

At any rate I eventually found it all, checked out, and went to my truck—only to find that the container box I bought was cracked, the lid didn’t fit, and the spray bottle of bleach leaked on everything.

At that point I was not a happy camper and fully ensconced in the idea that Mondays were awful, especially this one. If I’m to be totally transparent, I was frustrated and agitated. It didn’t help that I was on a quickly diminishing time frame to get it all done.

As I grumbled my way back into the store, I had a moment of self-revelation. Here I was irritated and aggravated by my own shopping failures and the ill-use of my time — and then it hit me… I could have been dealing with trees on my roof or no roof at all. I could have been looking at the loss of all my possessions or worse, I could have been planning a funeral amid such devastation.

I recognized how truly petty this moment of self-pity was — I recognized that my Monday wasn’t bad at all and quite frankly, blessings were all around.

And just like that, there was a bit more pep in my step and a song on my lips… “So, amid the conflict whether great or small, Do not be discouraged, God is over all; Count your many blessings, angels will attend, Help and comfort give you to your journey’s end.”

God bless Mississippi!

Les Ferguson, Jr., is pastor of Oxford Church of Christ. Write to him at lfergusonjr@gmail.com