While in high school, I worked as an assistant to a professor from Emory Dental School in Atlanta. He enjoyed teaching, but Dr. Bartholomew missed patient interaction, so he contracted with our family dentist to use his office on Saturdays. I was his receptionist and assistant.

I liked working with Dr. B. The atmosphere was pleasant and peaceful. However, there were days when it seemed nothing went right. For example, when filling a difficult molar, Dr. B had to practically stand on his head to work. He was challenged because dental equipment was not made for left-handed dentists back then.

I don’t remember other problems, but I know they existed, because I remember his response  when they’d pile up. He’d quietly sing, “Mama said there’ll be days like this. There’ll be days like this, my mama said!” from “Mama Said,” a song released by The Shirelles in 1961. He never sang anything else. That song told me he was stressed.

Fifty years later, I still occasionally think about “Mama Said” when facing unexpected difficulties. It came to mind a few days ago when a friend shared with me. Jeanne’s day was filled with challenges that were in her space and needed to be addressed, but they were outside her jurisdiction, so she couldn’t do anything about them.

The song came to mind when she told me about her drive home. She turned on her blinker to signal a right turn. Instead of the blinker, the windshield wiper started. Her reaction was, “What in the world!”  After a moment of consternation and confusion, she realized she’d used the wrong lever. She’d turned on the wipers, not the blinker.

She stopped for fast food in route. When she pumped ketchup into the little cup that’s provided, it came out really watery and kinda’ brown colored. “Ooooh, yuk. What’s wrong with the ketchup?”

Then she saw she was pumping tea, not ketchup—and that an employee saw her mistake. Jeanne chuckled and told her, “You can tell your co-workers what I did so they can laugh too, but please wait until I’ve left so they won’t look at me!”

And I’m thinking, “Mama said there’ll be days like this.”

Problems of wipers coming on instead of blinkers and tea in the ketchup cup quickly turn into a laugh that relieves tension. However, that’s not true of all interruptions or challenges.

For instance, a friend’s plumbing has been stopped up for two weeks and the plumber can’t find the blockage. A house across the street burned down the day after Christmas, and a young wife discovered uterine cancer resting next to her baby when she had her first ultrasound—all recently.

We never know what a day will bring.

We can count on most days having some kind of challenge. The question is not IF it will happen, but how we will deal with the unpleasant surprises that interrupt us.

Having expectations that life will always be smooth and go like “I” want it to leads to frustration, anger, and shaken faith when the unexpected happens. Emotional eruptions short-circuit the brain, making it more difficult to deal with the situation. Dr. B’s singing was probably his way to calm down and embrace the day, so he could make the best of it.

If we have Jesus, we should be able to navigate “days like this” with greater grace, because we have more than a mama who said it.  God warned us and also told us what to expect.  The Bible says the righteous will suffer many afflictions, “but the Lord delivers him out of them all” (Ps. 34:19).

Jesus warned us of tribulations and persecutions. (Mark 10:29-30, Jo. 16:33). Paul said he is “well content” with weaknesses, insults, distresses, persecutions, and difficulties “for Christ’s sake, for when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Cor. 12:10). If Paul experienced bad days, we can expect them.

Paul said not to be disturbed by afflictions, for “we have been destined for this (1 Th. 3:2-3) and reminded us that we conquer through Christ, and nothing “shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:35-39). Stress and unexpected interruptions don’t have to ruin our day if Jesus is with us—but we may need to remind ourselves that He is there all the time.

James takes it a step further. He encourages us to “Consider it all joy . . . when you encounter various trials” because through the testing of our faith we gain endurance that we may be “perfect and complete, lacking nothing” (Jam. 1:2-4).

It’s good for a mama to warn that there’ll be days like this, because they do happen. However, it’s even better to have a reason to hope and rejoice in the midst of frustration, hardship, uncertainty, pain, and whatever else the world might throw our way that makes our day “like this.”

Jesus warned us so that we can have peace in the midst of our difficult days. “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33, emphasis added).

In Him, we can overcome our days like this.