“It’s the way that the sink refills itself with dishes within thirty minutes of me emptying it into the dishwasher; the same dishwasher that has somehow become the soundtrack to each night spent in this little house.
It’s in the way that the piles of laundry get higher and higher, no matter how many seconds I spend washing, drying, folding, stacking, putting away.
It’s the manner in which I’ll drop $200 at the grocery store, and five days later I’ll still be scrounging around for something, anything to make from the mismatched ingredients left over after all of the good stuff is gone.
It’s in the way that the stack of bills sitting on the counter gets a little bit higher each time we open the mailbox, all the while our bank account struggles to keep up.
It’s the way that the diaper bag always needs to be refilled, and baths always need to be given, and toys always need to be gone through, and organized, and rearranged.
It’s in the nights when my eyelids are heavy but there is still so much to be done.
It’s the way that it feels like even though I’m always running, I’m never really getting anywhere at all.
That’s where I find it. That’s where I find the tough in this living thing.
The piles, the burdens; that’s the stuff that’s easy to see. That’s the stuff I tend to fixate on when I should be looking for the blessings buried underneath.
It’s a never ending cycle that prompts whispers in my mind of, ‘Is this all that I’m made for?’ rather than celebrating all that was made for me.
Because truly, under all the tough, I have been handed so very many blessings.
Like a husband who is in this with me, 110%, forever. A guy who carries the load when it’s too heavy for me to shoulder alone. One who sees that look of I-Just-Can’t-Do-This-Right-Now in my eyes and gives me a break before I’m the one broken.
Blessings like the little ones whose mess is evidence of their creativity, imagination, and spunk. Whose needs are a sign of the love and trust they put in me; their mama who also just so happens to be as much their world as they are mine.
There are blessings in having a home that requires cleaning, and bills that need paying, and laundry that begs to be folded.
And those ever-present dishes are a reminder of the food that we’re lucky enough to set on our table day after day after day.
There are a lot of difficult things in this life.
There are a lot of really beautiful things in this life, too.
If your tired head is nodding yes to all of these thoughts, and if your weary heart is sighing in relief to know that you’re not the only one– then know this:
We can do both.
We can recognize the hard while celebrating the good.
We can despise those messy, unrelenting dishes, yet still choose to scrub them until we find the blessings hidden underneath.”
This story was submitted to Love What Matters by Casey Huff of Etched in Home. Be sure to subscribe to our best love stories here.
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