Grateful

My fingers are still numb from running this morning in the freezing cold, but I couldn’t help taking advantage of all the family in our home to help with the kids and get out for an hour of peace, and now some quiet to share what’s on my heart. I felt all sorts of feelings on my run as I reflected on the past year and where we were a year ago. I took in our sweet new neighborhood, the beautiful fall leaves and the crisp air and felt an overwhelming sense of thankfulness.

I’ll talk a little about our home in another post, but for a little background, we moved to our current home a year ago when I was about 8 months pregnant with Charles. Every single day that goes by Charlie and I say to each other something we are grateful about with our new house.  God was so faithful through the entire process and we are forever thankful for all that God has done for us in this past year, our family expanding, and the people we’ve been able to have in our home, our lives feel so enriched.

Since moving, our house has been slowly filling with furniture and we are forever adding things to our to do list. If we’re being honest, we kind of feel underwater with our to do list and very little time (or energy) to do any of it.

Yesterday, the day before Thanksgiving, Charlie and I were bustling around the house cleaning and doing last minute preparations before our family arrived. We both were a little stressed. Our entire house was littered with toys and dirty laundry. It was 1 pm and I still hadn’t cleaned the kitchen from breakfast. I wasn’t being the nicest mom (or daughter-sorry mom) either. The girls asked me every 3 minutes when their grandparents would be there and every response I gave them was a little less kind than the last. In addition, I was growing bitter cleaning up the house on my own while they simultaneously made it messier.

I’m always telling the girls when they’re grumpy that they need to go upstairs and have an attitude adjustment and come back downstairs when they can be sweet to their family again. So once my inlaws arrived, I did just that…I went upstairs and took a nap. Lord have mercy I needed that nap. God used that time to completely shift my perspective. Something hit me, my kids will not remember what the house looked like, if the turkey was dry or if dinner was “on time”. They will remember the mood, and something I’ve learned is that momma’s mood tends to dictate everyone’s mood. The last thing I want our kids to remember about the holidays is that mom was stressed out, paying no attention to the kids or sitting down to enjoy our family, but that was exactly the track I was on yesterday. Thank you God for stopping that train.

Moms and dads, enjoy days of rest, especially today. Don’t let your to do list or idea of perfection take the joy out of the holiday season. Even if your home is not perfectly decorated, you burned dinner (did that last night…), or your kids are having temper tantrums every hour, what matters is the time spent with loved ones because you never get that time back. Use it wisely, tell them why you’re thankful for them. Or if that’s awkward (I know that can be awkward) write it down for them to read later. Give yourself grace every day and always remember to be grateful for His faithfulness.

I hope you have a blessed Thanksgiving!