My A-HA Moment

It seems common in our society to focus on the negative, what's going wrong, or on drama. How easy it is to get caught up in it! Lately I've allowed myself to give way to the hormones and bad moods and instead of focusing on all of the blessings and wonderfulness around me I have been noticing the bad way more than the good. 

I may have mentioned before that my husband is in a VERY intense training program for work and it involves a lot of stress, studying, and a large time commitment. Lately this has consumed a lot of his weekend time as well. Despite this, yesterday he let me sleep in until 10am while he bathed Corb.en, fed him breakfast, got him dressed and ready for the day, cleaned up the kitchen and took our boy out on a daddy-son date so I could have some alone time. Did I focus on all of that wonderfulness? 

....NOPE. Instead I was annoyed that he woke me up before he left and that when I got up our house looked like a toy bomb went off, he left C.orben's pajamas in a ball on the bathroom counter, and there were little C.orben hand-prints all over the mirror. The horror! Why didn't he let me sleep in as long as I needed? Didn't he remember me crying the day before because I was so exhausted? Didn't he think my alone time would be better spent relaxing instead of cleaning up the toy bomb? Who does he think it is that picks up the clothes and wipes down the mirrors... our invisible maid? I found myself getting more and more angry.

Then I heard the Lord telling me to march my surly little hiney over to my counter and to read the framed quote I have of Philippians 4:8. Thank you Lord for the reminder! 

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Especially reminding myself to focus on whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, and anything worthy of praise was such a salve to my horrible attitude! My husband set aside the majority of his day to take care of his family! He has a huge (I can't even stress how important it is) exam coming up soon and instead of studying, he took all of the duties for C.orben onto himself so that I could sleep in and then have the entire morning in peace and quiet BY MYSELF. You mommies know how awesome it is to have time all alone. Oh and that mess and toy bomb that I let myself get in such a hissy over.... yeah that took me like 5 minutes to pick up. Seriously.

I'm so grateful that the Lord took over my heart and let me see the situation with gratitude and beauty. It was an instant transformation and instead of focusing on the imperfect scenario I was able to see it for what it was. I had a new attitude and instead I wanted to get the house as clean, fresh, and welcoming as I could so that my boys would be greeted with love and peace when they walked through the door. It was so much better than them coming home to a mess or an angry wife and mother when they had just had such a nice morning together. Don't worry, I still got plenty of relaxation and lounging in too, but I'm so much happier that I was able to have an a-ha moment.