As I'm getting older, I swear I'm becoming more and more opinionated. As we sat in presidency meeting a couple weeks ago, one of us brought up the point that some women were unhappy about working with their own child or working with certain groups of kids. Well, I had just watched this video just a few weeks prior, and I immediately climbed up on my soapbox and shared my feelings about being happy with whatever we're doing at the moment. I'm convinced that it's just a matter of changing your mind. It's a decision to be happy. I truly believe this.
I took Gretchen's quote and altered it just a bit. "The days are long but life is short." As I'm looking at my #1 heading off to college, I'm now facing the reality of what everyone has warned me about since she was a baby, "It goes by so fast."
I remember when our ward split when she was less than 2-years-old. The Primary president's last priority was filling the nursery with leaders. They had what was called a "self-service" nursery. In my opinion, this was doing a lot of members of the ward a disservice as they were trying to get something out of church, so I volunteered to be the nursery leader. I remember feeling a bit resentful about being my daughter's teacher. I was with her all day everyday. Couldn't someone else do this job? But, I knew others were benefitting from my service. I never verbalized those feelings to anyone, but to be honest, I felt them. Now that I look back, I'm ashamed of myself. I wish those thoughts had never been allowed to enter my brain. I did overcome them back then, but I wish I had just been happy with everything life afforded me and saw the great blessings for working with the children from day one--especially the chance to be with my daughter. Little did I know back then how fast the time would pass.
In all of this lies the challenge--Enjoy every second of everyday with whatever I do. One thing I've learned is that I'm really not in charge of my life. I mean, I'm allowed to make my own decisions, but the outcome is often not mine to decide. If I truly have faith and know that God is there and is aware of me, shouldn't I have every reason to trust Him and know that it will all turn out for my good in the end? I believe so. Therefore, I have no reason not to be happy even if the situation seems the very worst it can be. This is the challenge of life, and this is why this is one of my commandments--it's hard for me to keep perspective sometimes.
So, there you have it...This IS it! This is all we've got. Why not be happy with it no matter what "it" is? That's the challenge...no, that's the commandment.
2 comments:
It really is a choice to be happy. We may not always have a choice in our circumstances, but we always have a choice in how we handle them.
i remember when our oldest left to head off to college, that was 10 years ago this summer. the range of emotions hit me and the thoughts of how quickly my 2nd and 3rd and 4th and so forth would grow up and then be out the door as well. Needless to say, these past 10 years have flown and now we ar looking at our 4th one graduating in a few short months. The days are long, but the time is short...so so short. find joy in the journey and love every second of it. because you are right, sadly I miss the sounds of noise in our home that used to always be here. I never wished for summer vacation to be over or Christmas break either. I loved having everyone around. thanks for sharing this Julie
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