Choosing Happiness

It's Mother's Day, and if we're being honest, I was sure that I'd be celebrating my first one as a mother this year.

I can't help but think back to this time last year, before we had begun the adoption process, when I was more angry at our situation, at God, and at everyone else (deserving or not) than I dare to admit.  I was thankful for my own mother that day, but in general, I just couldn't wait for the day to be over so I could stop seeing pictures on Facebook of everyone with their little ones.  In a post from 2012, I wrote about how our church helped to ease my hurt on Mother's Day by showing sensitivity and valuing all women for their unique gifts instead of singling out the mothers and making everyone else feel inferior.  I still have never seen that done anywhere else, and I am incredibly grateful to go to a church where stories like that one are typical.  But the day as a whole was still incredibly sad and unfair for this girl with such a bitter heart.   

A year later, we have finished all of our paperwork to adopt, but we're still waiting.  Still no baby, still no word on when we will get one.  Not much has changed about our situation, but everything has changed about my outlook.  

I realized that I can choose to be annoyed and hateful about what I don't have, or I can be appreciative of my own mother, my mother-in-law, and my two sweet grandmothers.  I can actually listen to and believe people's words when they say, "You'll be a mom someday" instead of inwardly seething because "that's easy for them to say."  I can cherish the "mom-to-be" cards that I have received this week instead of resenting the  fact that they don't say, "To a Wonderful Mother."  (To my sister-in-law, niece, and nephews: If you're reading this, I will keep that sweet card until the day I die.)

At my uncle's funeral, the preacher talked about "living the dash," meaning the dash between the year you were born and the year when you die.  It seems cliche, but I have held onto those words to remind myself that, "In the end, it's not the years in your life that count, but the life in your years."  In my years thus far, I have gotten to learn so much of what I know about love, friendship, kindness, good cooking, and Southern hospitality from the wonderful women in my life, particularly my mom.  How quickly I tend to forget those things as I only look ahead to what comes next!  On Mother's Day this year, I have decided to "live in the dash" and to be thankful.   

Being angry and bitter is easy.  Choosing happiness is less natural, but so worth it.  Even in the waiting, I am truly blessed.