I had me an epiphany,

I've been doing this a lot lately.  I'll be pondering on life and realize something really big (ie my epiphanies), and I wonder how I've lived the last 26 years without that knowledge?  I know that God gives you what you need line upon line, but my overly impatient self doesn't like to wait.  I'm still working on the patience thing.  Big time.

But that wasn't the epiphany.  It happened as I was actually able to listen to some adults speak at church yesterday (usually I'm working with the children, which is what I love love love so much - I'm not being sarcastic, it really is my favorite thing - but it's still nice to see adults and hear big words and about older peoples experiences).  While I was listening, I got lost in my thoughts during one such adult's talk and got to thinking about my perspective on life.

I have a tendency to complain/be sad/gossip/not be 1,000% perfect/etc... Like, I do those things a lot.  Don't get me wrong, I also appreciate and love all the amazing goodness that my life has.  My kids are the best and they're the worst.  Marriage is amazing and it's also a buttload of work.  Working to try to make ends meet is crappy, but results in food on the table... yummy food.  Serving others can be so time-consuming at times, but brings so much more peace and happiness than not. 

Jack set up this photo shoot.  I hate pictures, but look how he had all his animals framing us, too funny.

I've been worried that I need to focus more on the positive, and then my personal epiphany came yesterday regarding this.  Yes, I need to count my blessings every single day and remember how much God has given me, BUT ignoring the not-so-fun stuff and pretending like it doesn't happen isn't a requirement, or even beneficial in my opinion.  Yes, forgiving and forgetting, moving on from trials, and all that jazz is vital to our happiness.  However, I know that the challenges we've had to conquer (or just survive) have blessed our lives long-term, and if I just pretended like hard stuff doesn't happen that I'd be discounting that.

So basically, I'm not going to feel quite so guilty about grabbing a diet coke after a long week and complaining about teething/never sleeping babies, state licensing tests, a pile of work to do for church, and the pile of dishes that smell so bad in the sink.  Life is kind of gross sometimes, and that's what makes the glorious times so much better.  So this is what's going to work for me for a while...