Breathing in the Ordinary + Choosing Joy

It’s an ordinary Tuesday evening aside from the fact that we upped our Taco Tuesday game with steak tonight. I can hear Nick upstairs with the boys, bathing them, brushing their teeth and occasionally yelling, “stop hitting your brother!”. Now he’s finishing off the bedtime routine with some of his beloved made-up stories. Everson lives for Nick’s “Power Ranger” stories and both boys are very forgiving of how often Nick falls asleep while regaling them. (It’s all quite precious to picture…at least to me.)

Nick is such a great dad and a really amazing husband. I’m not saying this to brag or to try to portray our life as perfect. It’s very far from that. We bicker and let each other down and have to work to forgive one another often. We often choose selfishness over selflessness, but this man’s grace abounds. I am so convinced that Nick is the imperfectly perfect guy for us and for that I am very thankful.

I want to choose joy more in this coming year and I think that looks like breathing in the ordinary moments that fill my days and pausing to say thank you. So that’s what tonight’s post is really about–a big thank you to Jesus for giving me Nick and my boys.

Tonight I’m choosing to breathe in the chaos that comes with having wild little boys that fill every minute of my day with so much sound and to be thankful for their noise. Someday I will miss it. I’m choosing gratitude for the sink that fills up with dishes each day and the crumbs and spills that pour alllllll over our kitchen table and floors. Someday my boys will learn how to eat a meal neatly (maybe?) and they won’t need my help to fill up their cups of milk and water. I’m thankful for the dependency of this season because it forces me to choose them over me. And someday I will miss being able to hold them in my arms and to wipe up after them.

Are you, like me, in a season of life that is filled with a lot of mundane and ordinary moments? Do you spend your hours wiping up the same counter or typing away at the same keyboard? Even in the monotony, I think we can learn and grow and be inspired. I’m setting out to choose joy this year and I look forward to seeing how God works in my heart through this process. Do you want to join me?

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” – Romans 15:13