Remember When?
With my birthday gift this year, my mother-in-law gave me a set of “Gratitude Cards”.
She lives life with such a positive perspective – always aware of her reasons to be grateful, even amid many seriously challenging events and situations. She does a much better job of it than I do, but I know she appreciates my heart to want to live my life gratefully. This pretty little card set is just one of many thoughtful gifts she’s given me that I know honor that connection we share. The idea behind the cards is, of course, to pass them along to others. Truthfully, though, I love them so much – and recognize how much I need to ruminate on so many of the sentiments they offer, that so far, I’ve kept them for myself. I have stacked them on an easel on my kitchen counter. Each day I shuffle through them, putting a new one on top. No other regular inhabitant of my home has yet to mention having noticed any of the messages, but I know they see them. Who knows how something they have seen there might help one of them at just the right time? I can always hope…
Right now, the card shuffled to the top says, “Remember when you wanted what you currently have?”
It came up several days ago, but I’ve refrained from shuffling and left it on top, because I need that reminder.
By the time you read this, my family and I will be knee-deep in the biggest event that takes place in our sporting clays business all year. True to the “leap-before-you-look” style that describes us to a “t”, even though the business just celebrated its second birthday in June, 2021 makes our third year hosting this particular event. That first year, we took it on before we even had our feet on the ground. By now, we should be pros, right?
Wrong.
If I have become a pro at anything, it’s only at knowing to expect the unexpected. Maybe also at knowing that no two experiences are ever the same. Maybe it’s just my personality, but I don’t think it would ever matter how many times we’ve done it before – I will always carry the same anxieties. As I write this two-days before “go-time”, I realize that it never fails: Right about now, I begin to wonder if someone might remind me exactly why we say “yes” to these things…
When I say that no two years are ever the same, I already have an example for this year. We run that business alongside a couple of wonderful partners. As a team, we all balance one another well, each of us playing the role that suits us best.
This year, though, the partner best suited to serving as the “face” of this event will have to miss it, due to circumstances he would certainly change if he could. Sadly for him, I think we probably all agree that he is also the member of the team who most enjoys this kind of event.
Ideal situation? Not exactly. But we are a team, and as these circumstances unfolded, another one of us stood up and basically said, “Put me in, coach!”: My 19-year-old son.
It feels kind of full-circle, because that same kid is the reason we even have that business. When the opportunity presented itself a few years ago, we were all still completely invested in his motorcycle racing career. However, we also knew that something like that just does not last forever. We remembered how shooting had been his first love in a sport. In fact, when he caught the motorcycle bug at age 11, for a very short (and grossly delusional!) period of time, we told ourselves that he/we could do both things.
Wrong.
Motorcycle racing, the way he ended up doing it for nearly 8-years, requires everything. From everyone involved.
Looking back, I promise that not one of us would trade a single minute of those years. All he accomplished; experiences and achievements he can take with him for the rest of his life; the time we got with him during those precious years.
We don’t always get to wait for perfect timing, though, so we took a chance and said “yes” to starting a business around what he’d loved first – believing that he’d come back to it someday.
Meanwhile, we never expected that before that time in his life could come, his sister would jump in with both feet and become an irreplaceable part of the whole thing. But she did!
A couple of months back, in a pinch, I stepped in to “help” her run the place one weekend. I ended up so grateful for having done so, because seeing her in action assured me that all I really needed to do was stand back and stay out of her way. So often, I look at that all-grown-up, smart, professional, genuinely charming, totally capable beautiful girl, and I wonder how she is even mine… (Except I know exactly how: God, in all His grace, somehow saw fit to trust me with her – and with her little brother.)
Real Life moves so quickly. It truly does not feel so long ago at all that we were their age.
As they have grappled with trying to find their way in this world, we’ve completely understood how that feels. We have done the same, and we have tried it so many different ways. I don’t mean that in the past tense, either. We’re still trying. So far, I’ve learned one thing for sure: We each need to follow our own path. If we listen for God in our souls, He will lead us to the things He means for us to do. Who knows how many things we have to try along that path? But when we get to the right ones – we know. We tell our kids all the time that nothing they do, as long as they do it to the very best of their ability, is ever wasted. I really believe that.
I’ve thought so much lately about the twists and turns our own paths have taken. If back around our kids’ ages, I could have somehow had a glimpse of the future and seen them and our life together today – I wouldn’t have dared believe it.
Yet, “suddenly” – here we are: A family, doing a whole lot of Real Life and running a business together. Sometimes I still can’t believe that, and when I say so, I mean it in all the ways…
I mean it in a grateful way, of course. I need to remember the truth of that more at “some” times than at others: For instance, at times like this past week. When we get to crunch time on doing an event like the one this weekend, please trust me when I tell you that I say, “I cannot believe this…” a little more often, and that I mean it in a different way.
A couple of days ago, as I ran around with a list the length of my forearm and my brain hurting from trying to plan and keep track of so many different aspects of the thing all at once, my phone kept ringing: The first time, my daughter’s name and photo came up. When I answered, she launched into a narrative about how her brother had just called her and yelled at her as they disagreed in their ideas of how a few things should go… I just listened and assured her we would figure it all out.
Lo and behold, a very short time later, my phone rang again: This time, I didn’t even have to look to know I’d see her brother’s name. And I did. Naturally, he also needed to call me. To tell on her – about how mad she, and her ideas that differed from his, had just made him. I just listened and assured him we would figure it all out.
Truthfully, they each made valid points. BUT: The moral of this part of the story is that – YES! They are 26 and 19-years-old, fully mature and capable enough to run a business and take on a major event, and they are also still calling me and telling on each other! (Insert facepalm emoji here.)
That is what this so often really looks like.
Why did I decide to tell you this today? For a few reasons, I think.
First, if you’d like to wish us luck this weekend, I’ll definitely accept that! Maybe root for us to each do a good job and maybe even come away still liking each other? I’ll accept that, too!
Secondly, because you know I tell you the truth here. Maybe you’ll eventually end up seeing a highlight reel of how this weekend goes, but I want you to know that behind the scenes, kids fight, my head hurts, nerves feel frayed, and we’re all already tired before a single thing even happens. Real Life.
Just as importantly, I hope that having really thought about it all, through the process of writing it down, will help me stay accountable: To the sense of gratitude I feel when I think about how much I once wanted a life that looks like this one does – challenges and all.
Finally, to offer you the gift of using gratitude that same way:
Where can you look at your life today and see something you once wanted? Something for which you used to wish and pray?
I just can’t know how things will turn out for us this weekend. A couple of nights ago, though, I went into my son’s room before bed and told him how proud I am of him. He has worked so hard all week – from dark to dark every day, traveling three-hours round trip on top of that. I told him I know he will do a wonderful job, and I meant it. Goodness knows I say and do plenty of the wrong things when it comes to my kids, but I hope they’ll always remember how often I tell them that I believe in them, and that I am so proud of them. When I think back to all that I once wanted for our life - the things I hoped, dreamed, and prayed – I just couldn’t have imagined how much more than that God could do.