I needed patience, kindness, and understanding, with no prerequisites to deserve it.

But that’s the thing about being beautiful. I don’t care who you are, what you look like, what you’re going through, I don’t care if your hair is done or not, I don’t care if you got enough sleep or not, I don’t care if you’ve been crying all day, being beautiful is an inside job!

This year, this decade, I choose to be free!

I joke with my friends and say that I keep my expectations low so that I am not disappointed. That’s the short version of it, but the longer version is to mix hope and optimism with a little wisdom and experience.

I have learned that it’s not that my faith is too small or that God is not listening, it just may be that I am trying to move a mountain that wasn’t mine to move in the first place.

I have realized that in this life, we really only have one job. We have one single job to do and that is to get ourselves, our spouses, and our kids into heaven. That’s it. One job.

And I loved the reminder she left for me. The truth is, she reminded me to just be her mom.

There is no such thing as perfect parenting.

If you are in doubt, I can assure you that if there were such a thing, whoever came up with it would be a gajillionaire right now! We would have all read the book, we would have all listened to the podcast, and we would have all attended the weekend-long event. But that hasn’t happened because there is no such thing.

We can approach our days with a little more patience and a little more experience and a little more wisdom than the day before, but that in no way means we have it all together.

It helps me get through the big things and the little things when I can be thankful anyway.

Sometimes a mess, a really big mess, can be the sign of progress. It seems to me you can’t really accomplish something big without creating a bit of chaos in the beginning.

“You only have one life to live.” Think about that. You only have one life. That’s it. And it’s the one you are living.

I think to myself, if I can make a difference in the life of just one person, then it has all been worth it!

I may not remember every party, or every “first,” but I am telling you now, I will remember all the times my girl and I got to rock and rock.

To me, it’s like family team building. It’s the one chance I have to focus on nothing other than my husband and my kids and the fun things we can see and experience together.

I have chosen to focus on my husband, to focus on my kids, and to focus on myself.

Think about all of the times we pray and we hope and we sit and we wait, and so often, it seems nothing is happening! How hard it is to trust when it appears everything has remained the same.

You know, it’s ironic, that we often find ourselves in the pursuit of happiness, when happiness was never something we were promised, or even something we were told we should expect.

I see the dads. The selfless, hard-working, tired, fun, loving, strong, gentle dads.

After marking off the days on the calendar, here we are…it’s finally summer. We are one week in…and I am about to pull my hair out!