Today we headed out to Costco for a new set of tires.
I steadily got grumpier and grumpier....
...first over the cost of my 4 new rubber wheels
(GAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!)
.....and then how long it took to have them attached to my car!
As the hours ticked away...
...yes, that's right...
...HOURS!
I started to notice something.
Ezra was having the time of his life!!
In the course of three hours we camped out on the garden furniture reading all of the new books we could find in the literature section...
(he has discovered a love of Bernestein Bears and Where's Waldo)
...walked countless circles around the perimeter of the store indulging in every sample that was offered to us...
(and sometimes more then once)
...sat on plastic lunch tables and re-told every American folk tale I could think of...
(consequently he spent the rest of the adventure saying, "I'm not Ezra, I'm Johnny Appleseed)
..."trudged the trails" behind the building...
(code for walked along the mulched land in-between the parking lots)
...and "discovered" an "old buffer" that was left behind from an ancient train.
By the time my keys were FINALLY handed over Ezra declared,
"this is my favorite place EVER!"
It really made me think.
Yes, my little boy doesn't have money cares or a boring, endless, sense of the passing hours weighing him down, but on the other hand, he could have chosen to walk around whining that he didn't want to be in the store, that he wanted to be somewhere else, or worse yet, that he wanted to BUY something.
HA!
Instead he chose to find joy in the simpleness around him
For a while now I've followed a blog about a crafty mom and her beautiful daughter.
Recently, her life has been caving in around her. She had a miscarriage, then weeks later lost her Dad, then on her second attempt to get pregnant wound up with a molar pregnancy which quickly became a ravenous cancer spreading throughout her body.
Through it all, her posts have remained positive, uplifting, and hopeful.
Watching it all unfold, I am continually amazed that she still smiles with a tear-streaked face and a beautiful bald head and openly invites everyone around her to choose joy.
Even if that joy is as simple as a desert sunset on the way home from the chemo center.
It's hard!
It's so hard!
But, lately I've been finding that she's right.
When I choose joy....everything else seems easier to deal with.
Even simple, but seemingly endless, horrible, tasks with a three year old in tow. =)
2 comments:
You're so right! Things get tough and it's easy to get down, but choosing joy is always the way to go. I taught about Nephi in Sharing Time yesterday and how even though his brothers were horrible to him he still found a way to have faith and pray for Heavenly Father to bless them. I didn't see the lesson it was teaching me until I was testifying to the kids about trials and faith. It's hard, but choosing joy is the most worthwhile thing to do in life.
awesome post jen. so true. finding joy in the journey...so glad we have little ones to remind us of that daily.
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