Joy on a Tuesday

Tuesdays always get me. Already, the dirty dishes have taken over. Piles of maybe-clean laundry litter the living room floor. Wilting apple slices and popcorn kernels—bits from last night’s supper—hide beneath the kitchen table, taunting me from beneath their lair. Somewhere a stench lingers, and I do my best to ignore it. The chores outweigh my current energy level—and the week is just getting started.

How did this happen in a DAY? I think.

I shuffle some papers around on the kitchen island, not so much cleaning as organizing the chaos. No matter how many paper piles I make or how many times I run the dishwasher, the mess always re-emerges. I complete a few more tasks, but grow irritated by the moment. Inwardly, I shift blame for the dirty floors or the unfolded piles of laundry. I’m not the only one around here with hands! I mutter under my breath, feeling every bit the martyr. Bitterness threatens to sink its teeth into my soul, and feeling justified about my anger, I’m tempted to let it. Huffy, I shove a few more cups into the dishwasher.

Like I said: Tuesdays always get me.

But the struggle goes much deeper than the day of the week.

Buried beneath the mess and the mundane, Tuesdays bring out all my latent selfishness and self-reliance, my desire for bigger, better, and more. The household jobs are small enough that I can complete them alone, but not glamorous enough for anyone to take notice. My Tuesdays seem to slip away into the abyss of the overwhelmingly ordinary—and it is here that I struggle to see God the most.

The in-between space that is Tuesday is often my biggest thief of joy. It slides in under the radar making me think I don’t need God to scrub the dishes or to fold tiny pairs of socks. Most days, I can easily sweep the floor or replace the paper towels without giving God a single thought. My independence is bolstered by the mundane, and as a result, I don’t invite God in. I don’t ask him to draw near. Head down, I get jobs done until I’ve worked myself into a disgruntled, discontent, unlovely version of me.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. More and more I’m realizing: Tuesdays weren’t a mistake—a glitch in God’s calendar. Tuesdays hold just as much capacity for joy as Fridays or even Saturdays, because God is no less present. He’s not on vacation or out to lunch. God wants us to find him in the common, in the everyday mundane we so often dread. His abundance isn’t reserved for celebrations and catastrophes, but for right now. Here. In this middle ground.

And so I’m learning to find joy on a Tuesday. To look for God in the clouds outside my kitchen window while my hands are busy washing pans. To talk with him as I wait in carpool lines. To let the sounds of my boys laughter fill my heart with gratitude. Because the more I pay attention and inch closer to him in the everyday, the more God turns my messy, mundane Tuesdays into a sacred, joy-filled space.

And just in case you were wondering: This is my kitchen sink…

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