The Hard

Today was just one of those weird emotional days for me. It was a just a strange day. Riley has been coaching the last month or so and has been out of town almost every weekend so I've been either taking the kids to church by myself while he's gone or having friends and family help me watch the twins so that I can get to church and make sure Kendle and Morgan can be there. It has been really, really tough. It takes a lot of effort to make arrangements and figure things out just to get there. Today was the second week in a row that I was the recipient of some big time selfless service from friends who offered their help. It has been very humbling for me to receive so many acts of service over the last year or more since the twins were born. I know they don't view it as a big deal to help me, but it really means a lot to me and I don't take it for granted.

I realized over the last week that there is a season and time for everything and this is just a really, really challenging one for me. I've been fighting it and fighting it, and feeling that I can handle anything that comes along, but it was a losing battle. So I've finally given myself some permission to just let those feelings go. I feel like a little of the stress is gone.

It is NOT my season to be the person that volunteers to help out for everything that comes along.

It is NOT my time to try and keep up and worry about what everyone else is doing and what fun things I might be missing out on.

It IS my season to like going to bed early and be more of a home body because I'm really needing all the sleep I can get.

It IS my time to be home with my children every day and try my best to make their childhood wonderful and they are the only ones I care to impress with my time and devotion.

It IS my season to have an imperfect home with toys left all over the house and messes being constantly made, because four little children live in this "cozy" little house of ours.

I don't know why the simplest conclusions are the hardest to come by sometimes, because I feel like this was kind of a "duh" moment for me. I wish I could push rewind and go back before the twins were born and tell myself that the next few years were going to push me and challenge me and mold me in ways I never thought possible and that it would be emotionally, physically, and mentally exhausting - every single day. That basically no matter how hard I tried to imagine what it was going to be like, there was no way to prepare for it. That I would simultaneously wish every day for a vacation, yet also dread leaving my little ones behind. That every day would be a roller coaster of emotions and ups and downs. That those two adorable little boys would be SO DARN BUSY. AND CLEVER. AND FAST!!!

But I found while offering a friend some advice the other day, that it was exactly the advice I needed to be listening to myself. (Why is that?)  I said something along the lines of "that from the hardest challenges come the greatest blessings" or "sometimes the hardest things are the most worth it". Something like that. And then I remembered one of my most favorite lines from the movie A League of Their Own where Geena Davis tells Tom Hanks that she was quitting and going home "because it just got too hard." And then he replies to her, "It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard everyone would do it. The hard, is what makes it great." Gah! I love that movie.

Well, it is late and I am starting to ramble so I need to go to bed, but I just felt like I really needed to write these feelings down. I want my children to know how much I love them though, and how every single thing I do for them is worth it and I couldn't imagine life without each and every one of them.