Will They Learn to Have Your Laugh?

Sunday is the day I share a little of my soul. Enjoy.

As a young mother with a three year old, I didn't imagine I could be more happy. I adored my sweet Little Man. Then...God blessed us with a second arrival.

As excited as I was to have another baby, I was also very apprehensive.

When I gave birth to my second son, I truly struggled with feeling happy. It was one of the hardest transitions I made in motherhood. I struggled with feeling inadequate and just general postpartum depression. I wondered if I would ever survive that second child and often...the only thing that kept me going was the fact that I knew my baby needed a mother. It was a dark scary place to be. Thankfully the Lord helped me out of that darkness. Now, looking back, I can see what a truly amazing experience that was and how it lead to my greatest joys. I adore both my children...now. I didn't necessarily appreciate the hard parts of motherhood or the ding-a-dang hormones. Yikes.

Recently I was reading a message called Come What May, and Love It, reflecting on some of the experiences of life and wondering about adversity. Some people seem to have such an immense amount of trial, and others so little. One thing the message said was, "...whenever my steps led through seasons of sadness and sorrow, my mother’s words often came back to me: “Come what may, and love it.”

How can we love days that are filled with sorrow? We can’t—at least not in the moment. I don’t think my mother was suggesting that we suppress discouragement or deny the reality of pain. I don’t think she was suggesting that we smother unpleasant truths beneath a cloak of pretended happiness. But I do believe that the way we react to adversity can be a major factor in how happy and successful we can be in life... If we approach adversities wisely, our hardest times can be times of greatest growth, which in turn can lead toward times of greatest happiness."

I wish I had spent more time appreciating the spilled gooey oatmeal; bottles of food coloring dumped on white carpet; diapers smashed open-faced against the wall and used for paint by a three year old...(okay I may never appreciate that...). I wish I had laughed more during those times and taken life a little less seriously. Now, looking back, I can laugh. I wish that at the moments I had been better at recognizing the joy in that journey. I can honestly say...I have learned to take things a lot less seriously now and laugh at myself almost every day. If anything, I hope I can teach my children now how to laugh.

If we don't teach them to enjoy the journey, who will?



There you go.