Perspective.

You know that moment where you feel your heart plop into your stomach because you suddenly realize what a fool you've been?...That was what I felt Sunday morning in our Sunday school class. The topic of our lesson was "perspective" and that was exactly what I needed. Perspective.

You see, last week, I'm pretty positive that I spent the majority of my time moping...and no, I didn't mean to type "mopping", like I should have been doing, but moping. One "p". I was feeling so sorry for myself, thinking about how horribly hard my life is at this moment! I mean, I'm training for a half marathon which means getting up around 5:00 every morning to follow my training plan, I have a teething baby who seems to want to let the whole world know she's cutting teeth, a toddler who refuses to eat most of the time and is quite sassy, and a pre-schooler who's recently decided she's better off not taking naps. I was feeling like the best thing to do all day was skim through pinterest while I let the t.v. babysit my kids and if they dare "bother" me while I'm trying to "work" then they'd hear about it. When my poor husband got home from work, he'd have to hear all about how horrible the day was and how the baby wouldn't sleep and just cried all day and Lily-Kate spilled her milk on the rug, and Lucy wouldn't eat anything I fed her...etc. 

In my mind, all of those things seemed like such a big deal last week, to the point where I felt I "deserved" time alone at the end of each day, watching mindless television and eating whatever comfort food I needed to make me feel better because I have it hard. But on Sunday morning, thankfully, Jesus tugged on my heart strings, pulled me in tight, and gave me a loving reality slap. ;) 

There's a married couple that's a part of our Sunday school class and the wife/ mother has cancer. She has a young child whom the husband is currently taking care of by himself because the woman is in Texas at a cancer treatment center. Talk about hard times. I've known about this family for a while but hearing the husband give our Sunday school class an update on his wife this past Sunday, it just hit me that my life is so easy! SO incredibly easy! I get the privilege of having my husband come home to us every night after work to help me tag team this parenting thing, I am also privileged to get the opportunity to stay home with my children. We are all so healthy. We've never had any major accidents. I could go on and on about all the things we have to be grateful for and all the ways we have been blessed.

After almost having a tearful breakdown right in the middle of our Sunday school lesson, I decided it was time to get up, brush the dirt off my pants, put on my big girl panties, and get back to being the kind of mother I want to be. The kind of mother my girls need me to be. The kind of mother God calls me to be.

My husband is out of town for a few days so my game plan was this:
-Be the absolute best mommy you can be while Jared is gone.
-find ways to bond with the girls
-Patience. Patience. Patience. 
-put the girls happiness and love cup ahead of the housework.

Jared has only been gone a little over 24 hours but so far so good....Well, actually Great! We've been giving out extra kisses and snuggles, working out our problems in a more calm, quieter way, and I'm reminded that when my sweet little baby is crying, it's not because she wants to annoy me. ;) I need to take in this time while my little Chloe is still so small and cuddle her as much as she needs to be cuddled while those sharp teeth are moving in.

When times get tough, all you need is a little perspective.