LEMONADE....AN ACQUIRED TASTE

LEMONADE....AN ACQUIRED TASTE

Wow!  I can't believe the thoughts that have been going through my mind this past week.  I was so thankful for the encouragement and support that I received from readers regarding my first post. I was also nervous that I would NEVER, EVER have another coherent thought ever again and that that first post would tragically and embarrassingly be my last....then it all went downhill from there....insert any kind of ridiculous, insecure thought that a person could have.  (I even fretted about putting 2 spaces after periods because I was informed by my big kids that is not a rule anymore...I can't even).

The crazy thing about the decision to write about my life and put it out there in the web universe, automatically set up an iron clad, air tight form of accountability for me to make good on the fact that I "firmly believe makin' lemonade is possible" (yes, I am mocking myself right now).  It turns out after writing that blog post, which I fervently meant, we experienced an extremely difficult day at out house, which is very common.  Oh, I would LOVE to give you all of the gory details, but let's just call it an "episode" and get on with the story.  So, as this "episode" unfolded throughout the day, I COULD NOT MAKE LEMONADE!  I COULDN'T do it!  How could this be happening????  I put "my firm belief" out there in writing!  I have a responsibility to my family and now to my readers to MAKE FRICKIN LEMONADE out of the lemons that were being hurled at me!!!!  I tried for a while, I tried really hard.....  I smiled, I joked, I laughed, I danced in the car to "Uptown Funk", I used my inside voice,  but deep in my belly the stress was churning and it was only a matter of time before I couldn't take it anymore.  To be honest, I didn't WANT to make lemonade. (I'm not gonna lie, at one point I did consider some hard lemonade).  I just didn't have it in me.  I was angry and resentful which left me feeling so guilty, so ungrateful, so accountable, so hypocritical. And then it happened.....I broke.  The tears, the ugly cry face, the rant about how horrible and unfair everything was...and once it started, it couldn't be stopped.....the train was derailing and it was gonna derail, and derail it did!

 But there is this amazing thing called grace that God gives you in times like this....sometimes it's something that you feel inside and sometimes He gives it via another person.  Amazing grace flowed over me via my husband that day.  In the midst of all that he had going on and his own exhaustion, he recognized and acknowledged my cry for help and offered grace in exactly the way I needed at that moment.  He let me rant, he nodded, gave sympathetic looks and he even let me blame him for some of the horror of the day :-)  Then, he said the magic words, "You need a break.  You are beyond exhausted and you've been pushed to the limit. You aren't yourself right now and it's okay.  I want you to take a couple of days off, starting right now."  If you know our life at all, you already have a good idea of the magnitude of this offer.  It would come at great cost to him and I would need to repay the gift soon....yes, I do mean in THAT way AND by giving him some time to himself.....what?  We're tired, not dead!

As I lay on my bed for the next day and a half nursing my wounds with chocolate, tv, chips, diet coke and more chocolate (don't judge, it's how I recharge), I slowly came to my senses, with the desire and commitment to make lemonade out of the lemony chaos returning to me once again.  You see, makin' lemonade, I believe, is a form of discipline.  It's a good habit to be embraced and developed like brushing your teeth in the morning and at night or not eating after 7pm.  It's a choice that requires great maturity, which I do not believe is dictated by chronological age.  There's nothing uglier than a temper tantrum at any age, but you gotta admit..it's uglier on a 50 year old than it is on a 2 year old fo' sho'!   You have to commit to finding something good, something to be grateful for in every situation.  For example....yesterday, I dropped a can of coke on the floor and it spilled EVERYWHERE.  I had a million things to do and I did not have time for this.  But, as I was wiping it up off the floor I thought,  "Hey, this is good.  The floor is pretty dirty and now this part of it is clean".  It sounds so trivial and horrifying to admit that I didn't wash the rest of the floor, but it kept me from going where I didn't need to go and kept my stress level to a minimum.  I wish I had learned this and been more proficient at it when my grown kids were little.  I wish I hadn't gotten so bent out of shape about things so often. The "coke incident" would have been very upsetting to me back then.  It makes me sad.  I've apologized to them and they've forgiven me, but I definitely better not make the same mistake this second time around.  The fact of the matter is that I HAD to get good at it or I would DIE!  Our issues with our little ones and the amount of chaos and crazy we experience in the course of a single day forced me to continually look for the bright side of situations.  I can choose to fall victim to the crazy or I can find the good and humorous side of whatever is happening. I promise, for me, it has lightened the load tremendously and has enabled me to preserver for the sake of my own sanity and for my family.   I am amazed at how swimmingly mature I can be at times....always with God's help and His perspective coursing through my heart and mind.  This "habit" keeps me grateful and brings a good amount of joy to our home.  You can't ask for anything better than that.

My encouragement to you today, whatever your situation, is to embrace and commit to forming a new habit....one that will change your life (and your family's life) for the good and honor God.  By the way, I promise I will not talk about lemonade in every post, but I'm diggin on the metaphor for now ya'll :-) CHEERS!  1 Thes. 5:16-18