When Life is Beautiful

The baby is asleep, the husband is in bed early for an early day of work. The apartment is littered with toys, blankets, a nursing pillow, sheet music, a paper towel, odds and ends of a busy day. The dishwasher churns soothingly from the kitchen washing away dirt and grim and making our dishes clean again. Finally, I have a moment to myself. Finally I can do whatever I want to do, whatever I've been trying to get to all day long but just couldn't. There's the piano song I'm supposed to perform on Sunday for church but haven't picked out (or practiced!) yet, the apartment needs picking up, those dishes will have to be unloaded. Then there's the skirt I've been trying to make, the purse I've been heckling with to just 'lay smooth!' and the characters from my story running around in my mind waiting to spring forth onto paper.

With so much to get done, so many 'have-tos' and 'should-dos' and 'want-tos' it's so easy to get discouraged. So easy to look at others who are doing it all and more and wonder if you just don't have "it". And that rain cloud of inability, self-doubt, and nay-saying follows you for a while until soon, all you can see is everything you don't do. And soon you will believe that you are just someone who is unable or unequipped to accomplish anything.

But every once in a while you get those moments when none of that matters; the night comes with the churning sound of home, the comfortable clutter of a place lived in and the silence of a family sleeping quietly in their beds. And you don't see the undone but the actual lives that are being lived and growing while you're so busy trying to make sure you're doing everything right. With stunning clarity you see what is most important of all. And for that small moment, life is perfect. It doesn't matter what is accomplished or left undone, what calls for our attention or looms dreadfully in the distance. For that short window of time, everything is good and All is well.