Truly Blessed...

First, let me thank everyone for their encouragement after yesterday's post.  I know it will happen.  I did it once, I can do it again.  I'm really trying to find a way to change my habits and make it a lifestyle so that I don't keep cycling through this.  Anyway..

Today I feel TRULY blessed.

I am sitting in the OT (occupational therapy) waiting room while Elijah is doing his therapy session for this week.  (He's working on fine motor skills, hand muscles, handwriting, things like that.)  Admittedly, I was not very gung ho about coming back to therapy.  It's time consuming and VERY expensive.  (He's been through this once before.)  Truthfully, I saw it as an inconvenience.  But, if it helped Elijah, I was all for it.  I realize now, as I did last week, that I am truly blessed.

I have 3 very healthy, handsome, sweet, funny boys.  There are issues, as there are with all kids.  JJ had to have braces.  Zach is on medication.  Elijah is going through therapy.  But......things could be so much worse!  I sit here listening, eavesdropping, I guess, on the conversations of others.  Some moms, with their kids, are here in therapy for hours at a time.  They go to one therapist for something, then to another for something else.  For them, this IS their afternoon.  Then I see their children.  All of them so cute and sweet and precious.  But, also, obviously much more challenged than Elijah.  At that moment, I feel ashamed.  I get upset, frustrated, and irritated at Elijah for various things that he can't do or needs help with.  They are usually minor things, but I feel that he should be able to do them on his own anyway.  He is inconveniencing me.  These moms handle so much more and appear to do it with such grace.  I'm envious.  It becomes obvious to me that God doesn't give you any more than you can handle.  THIS is apparently all He thought I could handle.  I couldn't agree more!  I just wish I handled it better.

I always had this silly idea, maybe not consciously but definitely somewhere down in there, that life would be easier at this point.  I have no idea where I got that idea from.  I guess because things seemed easier in my house when I was growing up.  There were no severe illnesses, horrible situations, or really any major hardships that I can think of.  (If my parents were here, they may tell me I'm wrong.  Maybe I don't remember or they hid them very well.  No one will ever know.)  I also had this crazy notion that kids would be easier as we went.  The first one would be hard because we didn't know what we were doing, but they would get easier as more came because we now had the knowledge.  NO TRUE!  Obviously!  But again, I sit here feeling blessed.  God is good.  He has taken care of us in so many ways that I know of, and probably SO many more that I am UNaware of.  My kids are great!  My husband loves me and works hard to take of my family.  What more could I ask for?

I have a tendency, if you hadn't noticed already, to see the bad side of everything.  (Steven complements me in that he always sees the positive side.  God is good that way too.)  My goal now is to focus more on the good aspects of my life, my kids, my husband, my job, rather than the bad.  I want to be truly thankful for what I DO have instead of irritated and what I didn't get.  I don't deserve any good at all.  But God saw fit to give me some.  And, for that, I am truly grateful!