I spent a lot of time at the end of last year pondering my own lack of thankfulness. When the dust (or rather the urine) has settled and Blue was consistently behaving (for Blue) again and I had time to reflect on my own whininess and, lets me honest, anger, I knew my lack of joy in those circumstances (still dwelling on I Thes 5:18) had everything to do with entitlement.
I am a fragile X carrier. I dealt with that blow. I adopted a boy from Russia.
I loved, LOVED living in Wilmington, NC, but God called us to Texas for Kevin's flight training. Me, a democrat, moving to east, podunk Texas. Talk. About. Sacrifice. (But I came around. There's definitely a soft spot in my heart for Texas.)
And in Texas, we terrific martyrs that we are, become foster parents
Foster parents who ended up in a legal nightmare. But we won. And we adopted again.
Meanwhile I ended up pregnant (surprise!) and shortly after our third son was born we received his Fragile X diagnosis.
And then we moved. With very little money and the knowledge that Kevin would be gone all the time traveling to raise his support/salary before we could be full-time with MFI.
During this we lived with my mother.
And I shared a room with my terrible-sleeper baby so for 5 months I didn't sleep. As in, four straight hours, was a good night. FOR FIVE MONTHS.
But then we got a house! And we loved our house! And Kevin had enough support to start with MFI! And we were all together again! And Toby started sleeping! And from August 2010 till about mid-January 2011 life was really, really good.
And after so much struggle and sacrifice and I felt entitled to be in this good place. I felt as though 2011 would be our year to breath a little and focus on the little things. Like having people over for dinner. Seriously our main goal for 2011 was having more people over for dinner.
And then my perfect, happy year with perfect happy dinner parties crumbled because of the defiance of one pissy four-year-old.
And I lost my joy.
Because I wanted one NORMAL year. I felt entitled to one NORMAL (bleepity, bleepin') year.
I was angry. (How dare you, God not give me a year off from sacrifice.)
But come fall. When things started to get better. I felt a little like a, well, four-year-old.
And I felt a little embarrassed that after an adoption, legal battle, moves, Fragile X diagnosis, etc, it took a four-year-old pissing all over my house, to cause me to lose my joy and shake my hand at God and say, ENOUGH.
In hindsight, feeling a little sheepish about that.
In 2012 I want my joy to overflow from thankfulness. In all seasons. In all circumstances.
And a friend sent me the perfect gift for this goal.
33 pages in and the ice of resentment birthed from my entitlement is melting. When I closed the book for the day I headed over to the author's blog and came away with yet another gem:
There’s only one address anyone lives at and it’s always a duplex: Joy and pain always co-habit every season of life.
Accept them both and keep company with the joy while the pain does it’s necessary renovations.
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In 2012 I will accept the residence of joy and pain together.
And, in the journal gifted to me by another friend, I will keep a list of 2012's daily gifts...
Today I began:
1. Friends who give good and perfect gifts.
2. Kaden and Blue racing on the beach.
3. So many shades of blue in one land(sea)scape.
4. Piles upon piles of incredible shells just heaped onto the beach for our perusal. No hunting and gathering work needed, just to plop in the midst and scoop by the handful...
5. Legos keeping the boys entertained and a perfect playlist keeping me entertained while I made beans, corn bread and zucchini fries for dinner.
6. Kevin doing his nightly Bible study with the boys.
Just getting started. ;-)