perspective

This morning when I woke up, I didn't feel happy.

It was even earlier than Elliot's usual 5:45am wake-up, a time which will perhaps always feel simply wrong to me.

I had the same throbbing headache I'd gone to bed with.

My feet didn't hit the floor, but rather the bags of maternity clothes returned/lent to me by my sister several weeks ago that have yet to be sorted and put away. Feet hitting untidied things is not a pleasant experience for me.

I lifted the baby from his crib, only to realize that his extra-early waking was due to a messy, leaking diaper. Gross.

That's all the kind of start to my day that it takes for my meditation to spiral downward. I am not, after all, a morning person by nature. Next thing I know, I can be thinking about the things that seem much more overwhelming, and much more wrong, and much more unfair, and much more unchanging.

Oh! the grumps were at my door. Complaints were just begging to be issued. Believe me, I was tempted to dress up my bad attitude as simply "pouring my heart out before the Lord," but I knew full well that I wasn't looking to communicate with and receive an answer from Him; I just wanted an excuse to grumble.

Without it being a conscious thought, my mind suddenly (thanks, Jesus) was rehearsing the Scripture passage we've been memorizing as a family:

Therefore, having been justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Peace with God.

What an amazing gift.

How can I stay annoyed with my circumstances, my truly light afflictions, in light of such Truth?

But the free gift is not like the offense.
For if by the one man's offense many died,
much more the grace of God
and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ,
abounded to many.

Isn't it amazing what a little perspective can do for us?

In that moment, as my semi-conscience blended into my conscience thought, I realized I had a choice: complain, murmur, spout about the things I don't like, don't have, don't see, don't do well at, and more; or see the goodness of God in all its glory, permeating the daily grind and the dullest moments.

It isn't just that He's done amazing things. He is amazing. And therefore I know that He will continue to be amazing and to do amazing things, right in the midst of the most basic and the greatest of life's challenges. It's who He is.

Now hope does not disappoint,
because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts
by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.