Now Is The Gift

I have been wiped out from the flu this entire week. Like literally, out for the count. I don’t remember the last time I was this sick. There should be a law against moms getting sick – or some extra immune system protection that makes it impossible for us to pick up these bugs. How hard it is to do the everyday tasks, let alone anything extra on top of it, when all you want to do is close your eyes. And sleep. For twenty-four hours straight. Or maybe a week. Or two.

It would be easy to start beating myself up right now, about all the things that were on my calendar that I didn’t get to. All of the things that I wanted to work on and accomplish this week in January, when my new years resolutions and goals are so fresh in my mind. When the energy and motivation for doing said goals and resolutions is still running high.

Instead, I am practicing a new theme for this year: contentment. Contentment with what this life of mine is. What motherhood is. All of the happiness and hard times that it brings with it. Being sick means resting, and doing the necessities. It means cutting out all the extras as I get better. What does that look like? What absolutely needs to be done every day? My kids need to be fed. My kids need to be loved. I need to be here, just here. Nowhere else.

How simple it truly is when you look at it like that.

Everything else is secondary.

The days are getting longer; the sun is beginning to shine through the trees a little bit earlier each morning, and set a few minutes later each evening. What a beautiful thing.

Here are some words that I am holding to as we deal with this round of sickness:

              “Whatever is happening in your life right now, is the best thing that could happen – even if it’s hard. Because it’s getting you to the next place. It’s teaching you something, giving you something. Let me fully be in the now, because now is the gift that I’ve been given.”