Blessings...

My back hurts!  I can barely sleep!  My stomach is VERY large and I still have 2 more months to go.  I woke up this morning with a stuffed nose AND a scratchy throat AND feeling achy all over.  I get home at the end of the day and I am generally so tired that my husband does most of the housework at this point.  Work is gonna keep me psychotically busy in the next month and a half- with a 150 + person lock-in and a WYD retreat hosted at my Parish for the Archdiocese of Detroit...life can seem a bit dreary as I finish up the third trimester, OR- I can focus on my blessings.


1.  I have a husband that makes me laugh...ALWAYS!  Sometimes, when I am mad at him, I actually have to put a book over my face so he doesn't see that I am really laughing at his antics.

2.  I have a husband that is incredibly patient with me.  A couple weeks ago, he said unkind words about an outfit I was wearing.  My response?  Naturally, to try to walk 3 miles to Church in 7 inches of snow.  So, picture the crazy pregnant woman walking down a major road, in snow, and her husband trailing her in his car asking her to get in.  We laugh about it now, I am thankful I have a husband who is patient enough to trail me and ask me to get into the car:)



3.  My husband and I got to celebrate our first married Valentine's Day.  I even got dressed up...curled hair, make up and all.  I figured he deserved to be spoiled for a night.  It was lovely.

4.  My LOVELY SJN girl's threw us our first shower.  Ashley and Lisa Hursin, 2 incredible girls organized it.  We were overwhelmed with the love shown.  We got so many great things, including almost 20 packages of diapers.  Can you imagine?  We are set for awhile! 

5.  Although we found out that we owe uncle Sam thousands of dollars, we decided to start a family budget (Dave Ramsey style) a couple of months ago.  Because of that, we didn't have to panic.  And we can still buy a mattress for our crib.

6.  After working a long-er day for a Sunday yesterday, I came home to my sweet husband doing the dishes.  Then, I noticed all the shower things that we had gotten were no longer in the family room.  I always get a bit nervous when the husband decides to take organizing on himself.  BUT, when I walked into the nursery, he had organized everything perfectly.  He cleaned out the storage closet, placed the diapers in there, hung up the clothes, and folded everything into their proper baskets.  As if that wasn't cute enough, behind our bathroom door he had hung sweet baby boy's brand new robe/slippers that a teen had gotten for us.  There might be nothing cuter than a 0-9 month robe hanging on the back of your bathroom door.

7.  The snow is a huge pain for lots of people (and I really do feel for them), however, this week is mid-winter break for me, so I get to take a few vacation days.  Although there is lots to do around the house, today I think I am just gonna stay underneath blankets with my teddy bear and bottle of water- nursing my cold away.  I am so blessed to have that luxury.

8.  We went to our birthing class on Saturday.  Complete with practicing of breathing and pushing (not gonna lie, so hard not to laugh at that part).  When the instructor talked about putting the baby on the mother's stomach right after birth, I got all teary eye'd.  I cannot wait to meet my little dude and cannot imagine the feeling of looking down and seeing him on me.  SO excited.

9.  4 of my favorites were in town this weekend.  I got to have a 'book club' meeting with my godson and dad, discussing the 'Hunger Games'.  It was awesome.  So great to see the godson all sorts of grown up.  I totally offended him when I asked him if he knew what propaganda meant.  DUH! 
 

10.  Last but not least, night time cuddles and back rubs that I get almost daily from the best.husband.ever.


I guess the choice is all in what you choose to focus on huh?
Happy Monday!

The grass is always greener on the other side

I have spent a lot of time the past few days reflection on the expression, 'the grass is always greener'.  As a child, I remember very often saying to my parents, 'but that's not fair' and their response always being, 'um, life is not fair, and the sooner you learn that, the better'.  I also distinctly remember having a moment in college when I realized that 'life really isn't fair' but it was because my life seemed showered with blessings, when others were never given the opportunity. 

I think we spend a great deal of our lives complaining about the way things are, wishing that they could somehow be different....'If only I had more money', 'If only I had a nicer house', 'If only I had a better job', 'If only my husband did this', 'If only my friends were like this'...if only, if only, if only...then, I could be completely happy.  But in the past couple days, I have been reflecting on how we are getting it wrong.  We waste so much time thinking, 'if only' that we don't see the blessings in front of us.  I remember one of the most powerful prayer experiences of my life.  I was at Our Lady of Good Counsel in Plymouth, Michigan after communion asking God why he hadn't shown me who my spouse was to be (this was probably 3 years ago).  And very clearly, a movement in my heart spoke and said, 'which one would you give up'.  Quickly, teens that I had worked with in the past flashed through my mind. I thought about how, had I been married with kids, I couldn't have done the ministry I was able to do in my early/mid twenties.  God was asking me which one I would have been willing to 'give up' in order to have been married earlier/had kids earlier.  And I started to cry (shocking) because the answer was, 'none'.  At that moment I realized that God's timing was a bit better than my own.  That his plan, was probably a little more important than what my sometimes shielded eyes could see.  It gave me a tremendous amount of peace to have a confirmation that God was working in my life, He did have a plan, and I was working within that plan.  The grass sure did look greener as a single person looking in on my married friend's lives...but turns out, God knew exactly what he was doing.

Every moment we spend thinking about what we 'should have' been given, questioning the blessings or crosses in our lives...is a moment that we turn away from seeing the beauty of right now.  We miss trusting that we have a God who loves us, who has a plan for our lives, and as long as we are working with His will and avoiding sin (to the best of our ability) we are being taken care of. I think the closer we get to understanding that, the more contentment we will feel in our lives.

God, please help me to accept the blessings you have put in my life, even the ones that I sometimes fail to recognize as blessings.  Give me eyes to see as you see, and a heart to love as you love.  AMEN!