The good, the bad, and the puke

Highlight real from the week....
First off my mom's 60th birthday. I am grateful beyond belief for my mother, am eternally thankful for how much support she has provided over these years and months, and am so happy to celebrate with her. Unfortunately, it had to be a record for one of the worst birthdays ever for my poor mother. My uncle is really sick so she ended up running behind leaving the hospital and feeling pretty sad. This left the rest of us at the restaurant waiting for 45 minutes. No biggie as we ordered for her so the food would be ready when she arrived. Unfortunately just as she arrives, Benjamin poops up the back of his outfit leaving Katie to pull off a head to toe clean up and outfit change. Meanwhile, while I wasn't looking the waitress kept refilling my children's apple juice cups before we received any food. As dinner is brought out suddenly Grace starts crying she doesn't feel well (no kidding after three glasses of apple juice on an empty stomach!). She stands up and promptly starts vomiting all over the dining room floor. Philip tries to save her by putting a tiny plastic cup in front of her to puke in. Clearly not cutting it, we dash to the bathroom. This is promptly followed by Caleb sitting up and smacking his head on the table. At this point I, very inappropriately, start laughing so hard I am crying. Like come on, you can't make this stuff up! Needless to say, we left before everyone else, I got five bites of dinner, and they took the cake to go!

In other news, I had another counseling appointment. One of the things that has been bugging me is how I don't always fit what everything seems to tell me I am supposed to feel and be like. I have really bad days definitely. I have moments of overwhelming sadness, despair, questioning, angst and tears. And yet, I always have times and days filled with lots of joyful moments too. I can genuinely laugh. Not fake laughing but real laughing. I can enjoy an auction out with friends and a day playing with my kids. Now don't get me wrong, the reality is always in the back of my mind, but for those moments or hours, I really am having fun. And then I feel like I am doing this grief thing all wrong because of this. So anyways, we talked a lot about how thinking of the past, future, and present. The past brings sadness because even when thinking of the good times, they are all tainted by the loss of what once was and will never be again. The future brings anxiety with all the unknowns and uncertainty. The black hole of what is to come is overwhelming. But the present. The here and now. In the present God grants grace to allow joy to squeeze in between the cracks of grief. It is here in the now, I can survive in Christ's arms because when I am in the moment, I am with, and am where I am. Not in the past, not in the future, but I am living in what I am experiencing at this moment. And there is joy and laughter to be found even in this season of mourning.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under the heaven;
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek and a time to lose....

Ecclesiastes 3