Saturday, August 23, 2014

As of This Moment

  My watch says "3:00 am" as I lay here listening to the heavy rain fall on the roof of my home, and the thunder rattling my bedroom window every few minutes. Bored out of my mind, I decided to do some writing to give my thoughts somewhere to go, so here I am to send a semi-coherent shout-out to any of my friends with weather affected health issues. If your body detects changes in the atmosphere more reliably than a meteorologist, I hereby offer you a sympathy hi-five. Thanks to the thunderstorm that has been gushing nonstop all night here, every joint from the base of my skull to the tips of my fingers feels like it's being inflated like a balloon (lots of pressure and stiffness) so I have not been able to sleep at all. But as soon as the sun actually does come up, things will get even more unusual...

  All four of my children have soccer games this morning, ALL of them within a 2 hour time window. Each game takes place at a different location across town, and two of the kids have team pictures before their games. For medical reasons I am not able to drive currently so I can't help with the taxiing. Needless to say, all that makes for a pretty crazy morning, even on a good day.


  So anyway, this is one of those days where I already feel like I am going to disappoint someone... whether it's one of our kids, for not being there to coach them and cheer them on... or their beautiful mother, for not being able to do more to help stave off insanity. (I love you sweetie, you are awesome!) But ultimately I am disappointed with myself for letting myself feel like I will be disappointing someone today. ;-P

  So as of this moment, I have a new goal: make it to one of today's events. Even if the only event that I make it to is "today" itself. Gratitude is the power to see success from wherever we are. That means choosing to see the positive elements of the here and now, not just clinging to the idea of future success.

  Goals are important, it's important to have a vision to hold on to regardless of what is going on around us. But even if I don't make it to any of the official events of this "morning-O-craziness", the willingness to adjust and readjust expectations as life throws things at us can already be seen as a win, despite what we may have previously believed success is supposed to look like.

  Learning to be grateful for every little victory is its own victory. Making a habit of exercising the will to keep taking one day at a time (or sometimes one hour at a time) is worthy of celebration. We have more positive power and potential for good inside us than we realize. So no matter what happens today, I will take a deep breath of the fresh air that comes along with the rain, and do my best to remember that choosing to smile even when life is overwhelming already constitutes a perspective worth smiling about!  :-)

2 comments:

  1. --= EPILOGUE =--

    So on the shoulders of my heroic wife, and with the help of my awesome brother-in-law... I wound up making it to my oldest daughter's soccer game yesterday, despite getting zero sleep and all the ways my body protests such circumstances. I am SO happy I was able to be there for her and go nuts as she scored a goal and had 2 assists!! Her team won 5 to 2, they were on fire!

    But the brightest flame was the joy warming my spirit with the renewed strength that comes from achieving a goal despite the obstacles (including a few not mentioned above) which life insists on presenting. The law of opposition is indeed a law, so we can either spend our time and energy resenting that immutable fact, or move on to the task of VOLUNTARILY learning and growing-- even when it hurts, and *especially* when seems like we are not making much progress; those are the times when it is most on our shoulders to absorb what we are here on Earth to learn.

    We are not alone in our journey no matter how dark it may seem at times. Life is full of chaos and hardship, and other people will always be variables because we are all human. God is the only constant, and that is exactly why our sense of hope and our flame of faith must come from an INNER one-on-one direct relationship with our Father in Heaven. We all need to make the switch of having our faith be something which is internally based, rather than basing it on external experiences. If we are focused on looking *around us* for reasons to believe, reasons to have hope, we will always struggle.

    So once again, it all comes down to making a conscious choice to exercise our individual power to choose how we will learn from life each day. As of this moment, I know that the whole day yesterday turned out to be a wonderful, wonderful experience in more ways than I could have imagined. We wound up going out later as a family to celebrate a special family anniversary and had a wonderful, memorable time with the children. There were many simple joys waiting to be found yesterday, including a few unexpected blessings that I would not have missed out on for the world. ;-)

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  2. My dear hubby, I'm not sure there is a more heroic soul. I am not very good with words but I admire you so much. You are ao strong and yet sweet.
    Thank you for your cares, your worries, and your heart. I love you dearly my companion.

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