Bittersweet

It's been a rough couple of weeks mostly due to illness and the exhaustion that comes with having sick kids and not enough time to actually be sick yourself. To top it off we acknowledged our 13th anniversary but didn't really celebrate it like we would've liked--very fitting for a 13th anniversary, don't you think? But in the midst of it all I can't help but feel the gentle reminder that someday I'll be thinking back on weeks like these and mourn the loss of them. Too soon they'll be gone, and I know I'll miss it.

So often it feels like life gives you extremes--like you have kids at home, or you don't--and for me that makes it extra challenging to enjoy the everyday stuff of life. Even this post is taking 50 times as long as it will someday because I'm balancing the needs of a baby that doesn't want to be put down and an eight year old that has a million projects that she wants to get done right this second! Some days I relish in the insanity of it all, and other days I want to hire a nanny.

On the rare occasion that there is a quiet moment (or a quiet moment that doesn't require the attention of the laundry, getting a head start on dinner, housework, preparing a church lesson, etc.) I am filled with wonder at all the good things the Lord has blessed me with, and I feel the fragility of it all. And it's not just that it could all be taken away in an instant--that's true too--but it's that it will be taken away as the years progress. Even as I complain about our anniversary, I also know that this business of family and raising kids is what marriage was created for. It's the whole point.

I am lucky beyond lucky, and some days I feel it.