So far this has been the summer of baby bunnies and bike riding. Take a look at this precious little creature!
When we aren’t aww-ing over our bunnies, we’re riding bikes. Almost every night we have spent the evening on the street in front of our house, being eaten up by mosquitoes, watching the kids get more and more steady on their bikes.
Emerald got a bicycle for her third birthday. She is just beginning to figure out how to pedal and how not to steer herself straight into the ditch. She and I spend most of our time crawling down the street while her feet (in princess shoes, of course) keep slipping off of the pedals and her shoes keep slipping off of her feet. Tonight she was especially set on stopping every six inches or so to get off of her bike and pick up rocks.
At one point she was having several issues, with mosquitoes munching on her arm, shoes falling off, hair in her face, picking up too many rocks, and she had to stop and straighten things up, smooth things out, and get her shoes squarely back on her little feet. Then she sat back down on her bicycle and announced, “Now! I have a bunch of not problems!”
She flashed me a huge grin and started working again to get her bike another six inches down the street. I stood there and watched her, thinking about how much better my own struggles through life would be if I stopped every once in awhile to think about all of my “not problems.”
I can get so caught up in day to day annoyances, and sometimes I realize that I have gotten all worked up about things that are really not that big of a deal. Sure, maybe I am a little overwhelmed. Maybe things don’t always work out exactly as I had planned. But, what if instead of letting it give me a bad attitude, it drove me to think of all of the ways that God is providing? All of the things that ARE working out the way I had hoped? All of the millions of ways that I am somehow given grace that I don’t deserve?
What if instead of triggering frustration, the hard stuff just triggered gratefulness? What if my go-to reaction was counting my blessings instead of focusing on the one or two things that I wish were different?
I think it could make all the difference.
Emerald managed to make it about halfway down our block before she decided that it was best for me to just carry her bike back to the house. So, I held her hand and we walked back, talking about all of the glorious “not problems” that this day had presented.
I think we’ll do it again tomorrow.
Laura
The wisdom of children! I have been running around in circles lately myself, just trying to handle all the stuff….have been praying for God to give me a phrase to explain this sense of being out of sorts…I think I found it….=0)
Thanks so much!
Robert Pratt
Melissa, your words make me feel sooooo good and smile too!
wyominggirlcoastiewife
At our (when we can) weekly time to be accountable and pray my best friend and I were sharing just this–how we get so focused on the problems and forget about our blessings, this was another great reminder….looks like God is trying to tell me something today! 😉