We all have bad days, and they usually start with bad mornings. Maybe you woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Or maybe your kids did. Either way, a rough morning almost always results in a stressed-out day.

And for us hate-mornings, can’t-talk-until-we’ve-had-coffee types, that’s a problem. And it always leaves me wondering how to recover from a bad morning.

The Worst Morning Ever

This bad-morning scenario is one that plays out way more often than I’d like to admit at my house. Take this past Sunday, for example. (BTW, am I the only one who gets bombarded by attacks from Satan every. single. Sunday?!)

It’s 7:30(ish) a.m., and I’m still snoozing away…even though I should probably be up and moving by now to get to church on time. My husband’s at work, and the kiddos are both asleep in their respective bedrooms upstairs. Suddenly, I’m shocked out of dreamland by a loud alarm screaming, “Fire! Fire! Fire!” at me.

I jump out of bed, throw on my glasses (so my blind self doesn’t run into stuff, fall down, and get stuck in the fire, obviously), and run into the living room.

My seven-year-old daughter is already flying down the stairs, hysterical. I tell her to wait in the living room (because I can see there’s no fire downstairs), and then I run upstairs as fast as I can to get my three-year-old son, who, by the way, is still sleeping soundly and won’t get up.

I grab my son, and we zoom back downstairs. By this point, my poor little girl is sobbing and saying she’s scared. I assure her there’s no fire (at least, I’m hoping that’s the case at this point) and tell them to go wait on the back patio.

Once I’m sure they’re both safe outside, I investigate every room of our house. No fire. No smoke. A big, ol’, whoppin’ nothin’.

So I proceed to check the outside of the house for smoke or any other signs of a fire. Nothing outside, either. At that point, I call my hubby to ask him how to turn off the dadgum smoke detectors that are still yelling at me.

Finally, I get them quiet and decide to go ahead and start the day (after eventually calming my daughter down; my son wasn’t even phased).

Not ten minutes later, the dang detectors start going off AGAIN!

This time I figure there must be a fire or smoke or something in the attic, so I take a deep breath, put on my proverbial big-girl panties (because, ya know, spiders and stuff…), and climb up into the attic entrance, shining a flashlight in every possible corner from my perch on the attic ladder.

Still nothing.

Frustrated and a little freaked out, I push the ladder back inside the attic…and something thumps onto the floor in front of me. Because this morning wasn’t already messed up enough...

It’s a dead frog. A frog skeleton, to be exact.

Needless to say, there was some serious spiritual warfare going on in my home that morning. Satan obviously didn’t want us to make it to Sunday school. But we did - because I’ve mastered the art of recovering from a bad morning.

How To Recover From a Bad Morning

Whether it’s fire alarms, frog skeletons, or something else entirely, you don’t have to let a rough morning turn into a rough day.

Find The Funny

OK, so getting woken up by the smoke detectors and thinking my house was on fire - and realizing I was the only adult home to get my children out safely - was definitely NOT my idea of funny.

But the frog skeleton thing kind of was.

At some point, we just have to laugh at the crazy, odd things that seem to happen all at once when you’re a mama. Or a human.

Pray, Pray, And Pray Again

Depending on exactly how bad the morning is, this step might sometimes need to be first. There are days when it takes a whole lot of prayer before I can find anything even the tiniest bit funny.

Start Over Right Away

When my morning’s going to you-know-where in a handbasket and I want to turn things around (which, admittedly, doesn’t always happen), I stop, take a breath, and pretend the day’s completely new again. And then I get going right away.

On Sunday (after I threw the dead frog outside and washed my hands, of course), I made my kiddos breakfast. I had some extra time, so I could’ve gone back to bed or lounged on the couch for a few minutes, but I know that a rough start usually means other things aren’t going to go right, either. So that extra time was actually super helpful.

Do Something Fun

If you can, take a little while - even if it’s only a few minutes - to relax and do something fun when your morning’s gotten off to a rocky start. (Maybe curl up with a good book?) The day of the fire alarm fiasco, I had a friend and her family over for lunch and playtime after church.

Did I have other things I needed to do (like a gigantic pile of laundry taking over my entire bedroom)? Um, yes. But when you’re hanging on by a thread, housework can wait.

Remember That Tomorrow Is Another Day

As the beloved Scarlett O’Hara is known for saying, “After all, tomorrow is another day.” No matter what happens today, we always (God willing) have another chance to start fresh in the morning.

So if you’re still wondering how to recover from a bad morning when you go to bed tonight, take comfort in the knowledge that God’s mercies are new every day.

And, sister, whenever you have a rough start to your day, just remember it could’ve been worse. You could’ve been attacked by a dead frog.