Flat Tires

In the last four months I have paid for the birth of a baby, the full deductible on all of my insurances—home, car, and health—four new tires for my car, and repairs on my house. My electric bill was HUGE this month, and my daughters keep peeing in their diapers.

Justin will not like that I’m writing about money. He likes to keep that stuff private. So, I won’t write about money. It’s not really about the money anyway. It’s about being an adult and living in a world that seems overwhelmingly difficult to navigate.

I ask Justin all the time how so many people do it—live. It’s hard. Paying all those bills. Remembering to renew your car registration. Picking up the dry cleaning. Cleaning everything (house, car, kids, self…). There isn’t enough time, energy, money…

I’m using lots of ellipses. Today I feel like life is an ellipsis.

This blog is called “Happy” so this post sticks out in its not being too happy. But the thing that jumps out at me is how many of my posts are happy—crazy happy and optimistic and bright.

I’ve only been writing this blog for a month and half—a very complicated, tough month and a half—and yet, the tone of everything I write is, maybe weirdly, positive.

That is because my life, as harried and chaotic and expensive as it is, drips with joy. Because I’d pay every dollar I’ll ever make for the smiles on my daughters’ faces. Because watching my husband change a flat with two girls crying in the background makes me more proud than frustrated.

I know this sounds sappy and sentimental. I guess it is. But I think that maybe life is best viewed through sappy glasses.

I think about a lot of the Old Testament reading I’ve been doing lately and about how God is so insistent on His people remembering. He’s constantly encouraging them to remember the good times, to tell stories about them, to meditate on them, to sing songs about them. All of this in the middle of really crummy circumstances like exile and famine and disease.

So, it seems to me that God’s pretty sentimental, and He wants His people to be sentimental—to think about the good stuff to get us through the bad stuff.

I’m good with that. It comes easy when you’re walking with God because the blessings far outweigh the costs.