Danielle Cater: ‘Momma said there’d be days like this’

Published 3:03 pm Thursday, February 4, 2016

There’s a song Lenny Kravitz sang that says “I’ve want to get away, I want to fly away.” Sometimes I still find myself singing this song, just out of the blue for no reason at all. 

But if you heard me singing that song this past week, then it was for a good reason. That’s right, sometimes life just happens to us. It also makes me think of the song, “Momma said there’d be days like this.” Oh, she tried to warn me of days like this, but who knew the days would be clumped together with actual, adult-sized problems. 

My children often tell me of how they wish they were adults so that they didn’t have tests to take and school to go to. I get it! I use to say the same thing, and honestly, on normal days, school was harder than my adult days. But then life hits, and not just every day life… the life that issues us bills larger than our paychecks, problems bigger than our brains can solve and hearts that can’t seem to bend and not break. 

Basically, sometimes life stinks. At these moments, on these days, it’s easy to look around and think that running away while screaming is the best option. Just walk away from all of those places in your life that are causing you problems and embrace some other place that is care-free and without any hard times. 

Wouldn’t it be nice to have places in your life that were consistently problem free? Even the best scenarios  have problems. Everything will eventually cause you some sort of issue. 

That being said, when your mind tells you that running away from your problems is the perfect solution, remind your mind that running solves nothing.

There will be problems waiting to meet you head-on no matter where you run, so the real solution is to work out your problems. Basically, sometimes you have to “adult.” That’s right, you’re probably past the age of 18 and it’s time you start acting like it. 

When problems start to rear their ugly heads around our office, we often joke that, “This is why we get paid the big bucks.” We received higher responsibilities because we have been trained to handle bigger issues. And that’s exactly how it is in life sometimes. We have moved up in years and with higher numbers, comes more issues. 

So if you are like me this week and you’re surrounded with mountains upon mountains of issues, sorry, but you don’t get to run from them. You have to face them head-on. 

Look at the smallest, easiest issue to solve and go to work on it. Then move on up the ladder. After you’ve tackled a few of the less pressing issues, you may start to see your mountain begin to deteriorate and you’ll be able to breathe a little easier. 

Continue to tackle your problems and before long, you’ll see that you have life back to a manageable level. All of your problems are never going to go away. There really isn’t any point in your life that you couldn’t look around and find something that is a problem to you, but what are you focusing on? Are you staring at your problems and worrying about them to the extent that they are ruining your life? That doesn’t solve anything. Sometimes our problems require action on our part. Get up and get into action. Other times, there is nothing we can do about our problems because some problems are just completely out of our hands. These are the problems that seem the hardest to me because I can’t control those situations and I can’t handle them myself. But when these issues arrive, more than at any other time, this is when you have to just pray and hand them all over to the One who can handle each of those problems.

Yes, life gets out of control sometimes. Yes, sometimes it does seem like the sky is falling. But the reality of the situation is that we have to take care of the problems that are in our care to handle and we have to relinquish or fear on the other problems outside of our power.

The storms you are facing today will pass. And sadly, there will be new storms to take their places, but through it all, you have to keep your head held high. Do what you can do to solve your problems, and never be ashamed to take any and all of those problems to your Heavenly Father. He’s not just there for back up, He really can give you the wisdom and peace to handle any of those problems from the largest to the smallest.

So when you want to fly away or you want to sing songs about Momma telling you there would be days like this, power through them and tackle those issues as they come along. Don’t back down.