I am not a person that likes to sit. I don't like to be told that I can't do anything, that I have no choice but to just let life happen around me. I don't like not being able to fulfill obligations. I don't like needing others. A lot of it has to do with my desire to control everything around me. Because, you know, if I can control everything around me then nothing can go wrong... right? Um no.
It's easy to blame everyone else for our own mistakes. But the truth is, most of the time, we are our own worst enemy. I fell on Sunday. Did I slip on juice that one of the kids spilled? Yes. But was it that child's fault that I fell? No. That child told me that juice was spilled. That child then tried desperately to clean it up on their own. Unfortunately the cleaning created a bigger mess. So, when I got downstairs to survey the damage, and I saw that what should have been a contained spill actually spanned from one side of the house to the other, I got mad. I got so mad that I started rushing around. And, as I stomped into the laundry room to angrily get a mop I slipped and fell. I fell hard. I hit my tailbone, my back, and my head. I wasn't mad anymore. I screamed and cried for help, and when the realization that I couldn't get up on my own hit, pride sunk in and I got worried that I would have to be taken to the ER in my ugly, yet comfortable robe and with hair that was bathed in apple juice.
That first day I was flat on the couch. I wasn't angry anymore, but I definitely wasn't accepting of the predicament I was in. Then the next day I got it in my head that I was going to be bigger then the injury and get myself to the Dr and be ready to take a road trip the next day. Well, it didn't quite go down like that. My pretty much new to me car died on the way to my appointment. It had to be towed and has yet to be fixed. At the end of the day, after majorly overdoing it, I found myself in big time pain. Today was different though. Today I accepted that in order to heal, I am going to have to give up on being everything to everyone, and everyone to myself. I realized that it wasn't an attack from satan, but rather a gift from God. It was my own human emotions that got me into this mess. But it was God that got me out. He took the bad and made it good. How? Because today I saw my kids in a way I haven't seen lately.
It's so easy to get wrapped up in life, to get so bogged down with everything that we don't have the patience or the time to see what is right in front of us. Afterall, every day there are things that need to be done, and individual needs make getting that stuff done more complicated! But today, today I saw three kids who are a lot like me. Today I realized that things don't always have to be as difficult as they feel, and that sometimes it's me who is expecting too much. Today was a gift that I wouldn't have even noticed sitting there waiting to be unwrapped if it hadn't been for the fact that I was forced to stop.
Does this mean that tomorrow will be just as insightful? No. Tomorrow may be a really crappy day. But what I will bring into it, and into other days will hopefully change how I deal with it.
God always makes good out of bad if we are willing to let go. And for that I am so thankful.
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