Saturday, August 17, 2019

An ordinary thought about perspective

Sometimes it feels like I'm doing a hard life and I'm throwing my challenges in my kids faces when they seem rather flacid and full of malaise. I do not mention the 15 years I spent flailing in warm laundry whining about sore nipples and nutella on the curtains. I do not mention the fact that I married a strikingly handsome man who provides for me with a cringing level of dedication and adoration. I do not mention the fact that although I have a tough job early in the morning, I drive a fancy car and wear an apple watch and hundred dollar headphones and fancy steel toe boots while I do it. I do not mention the fact that I go to the grocery store and find out how much I'm spending at the register because I have enough money to just buy groceries and deal with the consequences. I never tell them that. I don't mention that although I FEEL like I'm stressed out and run ragged by working a crazy schedule and going to school, I don't actually live a life governed by food stamps, WIC, food pantries or even reduced lunches at school. When I tell them that I grew up without air conditioning in a double wide in Arkansas with rust bucket vehicles they wouldn't be caught dead in, I don't mention that I didn't personally know anyone who grew up on more land, least of all in a river vally in the bend of a river. It's not about comparison, it's about perspective. They say you can either live in a state of gratitude or you can live in a state of victimhood and I feel nothing short of a gush of happiness when I arrow toward gratitude. I am grateful for true love, true friends, close children, health, opportunity to pursue a career and most of all the unconditional love of God. I know I'm a person with a lot of work to do before God can do what he wants to through me and I'm dedicated to the process no matter how hard it is. No matter what, I'll always be on the journey with my special people. 

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