There are days I want to crawl back into bed and hide under my covers. There are days I will excuse myself from the school table, the room, and go find quiet solace somewhere, anywhere. There are days when I bite my tongue hard to hold back the poisoned darts and still they fly free.

Today was one of those days.

I’m learning that I have a hard time being the responsible, get-stuff-done mom while still maintaining my laugh-out-loud-isn’t-life-fun persona. It seems I can only be one or the other. And I think this is why I cling so hard to summer. No school means we can go have fun and the house doesn’t have to fall apart. Warm weather and abundant sunshine mean laying by the pool, sitting on the patio, family bike rides, and just about everything else in the world that I love to do.

And I really want to be that mom year-round. But then, we would never do school or anything else hard because it would interfere with my schedule and our fun.

Unfortunately (from our fleshly perspective), God hasn’t called us to a life of fun. He hasn’t called us to bask in the sun all day every day while children frolic in the water. No, He has called us to work, and good deeds, and to count it all joy.

Joy. It can be hard to find when all you can focus on is the clock ticking down to bedtime.

Joy. It sits all around me at the school table and calls my name a billion times a day and needs my love and attention like it needs air to breathe.

Joy. It’s not always fun and easy and laughter. Sometimes it’s hard and ugly and comes with tears.

I lost my focus today and missed the joy in front of me. I admit, it would have been hard to find, even if I had been looking, but it was there.

It was there in the child who begged me time and again to play Five Crowns and who I kept saying “later” to and never did play with.

It was there in the mess of recyclables and scrapbook paper and the girls made furniture for their American Girl dolls.

It was there in their delight over tacos and bread dough and my iPhone.

It was all around me and I missed my chance to soak it in, to live in it.

**Lord, help me to focus on the joy all around me. I am living my own dream. You have blessed me beyond measure and I daily take it for granted. Forgive me, Lord, for my arrogance and my ungratefulness. Keep my eyes focused on you and your countless good gifts, even the ones that are hard to see. For your glory and for their hearts….Amen.”