So, something I've been thinking about a lot lately is how life is a challenge,
and it's a lot of work. Being a parent is a serious struggle, kids are screaming and
the house is a mess.
Did you hurt your hands? Owie! Yeah I hurt my hands.
You don't get a lot of sleep, your husband's stressed out, there's a lot to
teach your children, and you feel like you're never good enough because really
no one is I don't think.
And sometimes it just feels like if this would all go away then I could be happy.
Or if this were just easier or if my kids just weren't so selfish or impulsive or
if they just cleaned up after themselves then I could be happy.
And that's kind of like if you're spending time outside and you're hiking
a mountain and you think well if I get when I get to the top then I'll be happy,
and so you spend the whole time hiking cursing and feeling miserable about how
hard it is and whining and complaining or just thinking you know when I get there
then I'll be happy. The problem is sure you might be happy
at the top for a few minutes but then on your way down your toes start hurting or
your knees start hurting. Like when I get down to the bottom then I'll be happy,
and if you spend your time hiking that way then you basically spend 90% of your
time miserable waiting for something else to change in order to be happy.
Anyway, so I've been working a little bit on finding joy in the journey. Finding
the little moments of beauty in the midst of suffering instead of
waiting for that suffering to end to find a joy, and as I've been doing that
I've been finding there's a whole lot of joy right in the middle of suffering.
Just take a minute and look at the beauty of the things around you,
and slow it down you just look for the beauty and the tiny little things in the
moment in the midst of the suffering.
This area was burned last year really badly in a fire, and you can see a lot of
the trees are dead. All those trees back there they all got burned.
But if you look, there's beautiful things everywhere you look. So instead of resisting
life resisting the wholeness of life by waiting to feel happy until the
suffering stops. Until the pain stops until the difficulties go away and everything
gets easier instead of that. I'm encouraging you see if you can find joy
in those little moments. Slow things down stop resisting life, find the beauty in it.
Kids are pretty good at this. What do you see River?
Ah I see trees!
Are they pretty? Yeah, yeah.
You're a good girl Riv. Yeah! Yeah.
Alright, let's go walk across this bridge without falling.