Have you heard the one about the deacon who was run over by a hit and run driver? Upon the police officerʼs arrival he asked the man if he had gotten the tag number of the car that hit him. The man told the officer that he did not need the tag number because he would recognize his pastorʼs laugh anywhere! Weʼve probably never been run over by our pastor (At least not physically!) but we have had days when we have felt like a truck has run over us.

When I was working in the oilfield it seemed I had those kinds of days on a frequent basis. The oilfield is much like the army in that if there is something to be done, nothing is going to stop it. It doesnʼt matter how cold, hot, wet, or muddy it gets, the work has to be done.

It was one of those days I woke up to many years ago and saw that an ice storm had come in the night. I had a job to do 250 miles away. I was driving a small semi truck and my crew was behind me in another vehicle. The highway was frozen with ice the entire way but we drove slowly and carefully. The farther we went the thicker the ice became. We made it fine until we turned off of the main highway to go to the rig location. Then, as I was almost to the top of a hill I started sliding backwards. Backing a truck picking up speed on ice is somewhat difficult and half way down the hill the truck jackknifed coming to a stop.

We were okay, and there seemed to be little damage to the truck. We went to a farm house and called for a wrecker. With the wrecker we were able to slowly pull the truck up the hill but it took several hours. Finally we decided that it would be just too dangerous and difficult to go any farther. I called into to my company expecting to have to argue with them about not continuing. But to my surprise they told me they had been waiting for me to call all day because they were going to tell me just to park the truck and come back home!! From the jackknifing of the truck and falling on the ice many times, I pulled a muscle in my back which took some time to recover from. It had been a bad day.

When we have those bad days how do we make it through them? How do we recover from them? Our Lord is the One who sustains me. I cast my cares, my worries, my problems upon Him and He carries the burdens that would have broken me.