Life can get overwhelming and it can often feel like no matter how hard you try, life well can sometimes beat you up.
This week I'm feeling it and while it seems to be no different than any other week, I just feel tired. And when I'm tired and hit life's normal bumps in the road, it's easy to let yourself slide into a slump. I was feeling it as I've been dealing with neck and back pain for the last week that interferes with my sleep. And then when I thought I was going to have a win by ordering groceries in the middle of the night so I could pick up first thing in the morning, I quickly realized that wasn't so great when I ended up ordering groceries to be picked up in Waverly Iowa instead of Arizona. After an hour on the phone begging them to refund my $370 weekly grocery bill so I could reorder it again, I just felt silly, and like it would be really great if I could just get my act together and catch up in life.
And then I got home, opened my work computer and started to feel defeated all over again. The emails come in faster than I can ever keep up it feels and well, then I started doubting myself... maybe I'm not that great at this either.
So then I decided to eat some breakfast and that's when I went to my fridge. If you look at it from a distance, it looks like a cluttered mess of a whole bunch of different things. I thought to myself, I should clean this up and get rid of the clutter to make it look nice. Then I started going through each item on the fridge, and soon I realized that the cluttered look of a mess was exactly what I needed and if I'd just stop and look at what is represented on this fridge, maybe I wasn't doing as bad as I had written myself off to be.
There's messages like this...
that just happened to appear on the fridge. No one asked Maddie to write us a note, and she didn't even tell us she wrote it. It just showed up there. A moment of gratitude shared with us.
Or this one... One of my favorites. Maddie often asks my why Noah had to die and what he was like? I always remind her we will get to see him again when we get to Heaven and then we'll really find out what he's like.
And these bright beautiful colorful rainbow houses or drawings, or hearts. Madelyn always seems to incorporate the happiness of the rainbow into her drawings. They always make me smile.
Or notes like this from the school... of the good things the kids have done. Or the kindness Isabelle has shared with her peers. Reminders of the good the kids are doing, even though you often wonder if they hear you when you try to teach them how to act in the world
And these messages.
After reading our fridge full of clutter, I stepped back and realized while there are many things in the world I'd like to change, and many things that make me question how good I'm doing or the fear of not doing well, when I look at the fridge I'm reminded that there are things I do well, that there are lives I'm impacting and that to some of those in this family, I'm pretty darn okay.
Looking at our fridge it might seem messy and disorganized and often times that is a pretty good description of our life, but amidst all this chaos, there are a lot of things that are going well and so so many things to be thankful for.
Until next time,
Angie
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