Daily Dose of Perspective

Today is one of my favorite days during the academic school year. At our school, it is called Community Impact Day and the kids are divided up, in every grade level, to go out and serve in the community. Normally, I love being involved in this. To me, this is more exciting than anything academically they can learn and I love that they are unified in purpose and in serving together.

This year, I have ramped up working and am trying to learn balance...figuring out how to work from home, parent, being a wife, take care of household chores, etc. I am horrible at saying no and am in desperate need of setting up proper boundaries....whatever that may look like. I clearly haven't figure it all out yet. Today I decided I wouldn't sign up formally to volunteer, but I would take a little time to go and take pictures for the school at each location my children were at. I would be able to work a little, help out a little, and be involved with each of the kids a little.

I left my house around 11 and went to the first location. I planned to meet my mom's group of middle schoolers at a nursing home, This nursing home was near and dear to me as my grandmother lived there for a few years and our kids have spent time there on many occasion. I had all of my camera equipment in hand and couldn't find the students on any of the floors. They finished earlier than expected and I had missed them by less than 5 minutes the employees said.

Bummer.

On to my middle (neglected the most) child. She would be working at a camp - cleaning up the grounds and facilities mostly and I am not sure what else. I drove to the location and then around and around and couldn't find anyone for quite some time. Eventually I found a man raking - who just happened to be a high school teacher with a group of high schoolers around the corner working. No one knew where the fifth graders were. I finally found a worker and explained to him the situation. I told him that my daughter and her class were volunteering here at Camp Lazarus.....AHHH! I realized as it came out of my mouth that I had not come to Camp Lazarus, but I had come to Camp Mary Orton!

Strike two. Camp Lazarus was much to far to be able to travel to now.

So I headed over to where my oldest daughter would be serving. I followed my GPS which took me to the very wrong location. Don't you love it when the blue dot is in the middle of nowhere and says you have "found your location on the left"??? Fortunately she was only 10 minutes or so away so I took time to run over and see if I could get some pictures.

Her group was serving at a food pantry. I had assumed they would be stocking shelves. I was doubtful they would even be there anymore with my current streak of luck. What a wonderful surprise for me to see a room full of people waiting to shop for their food. The kids were taking turns babysitting the kids of patrons shopping or waiting to shop; stocking and organizing items; and escorting shoppers through the pantry which is where my daughter was! THIS was such an amazing and unexpected blessing for me! Kids often complain (and so do we as adults) about not having enough. We always want more and and we want better and we are so often dissatisfied. But my daughter was able to see first-hand how little others have. I was so thankful for this experience for her. A kids world so often revolves around himself or herself and oh how I want my children to learn empathy!

After that, I still had enough time to run over to my son's first grade class and get a few pictures of them writing letters and packing lunches for a local homeless organization.

Early on in my drive, I was so frustrated to be driving around wasting my "precious" and limited time - and here my kids were - getting to do things for others that really matter. I am so thankful to have seen just a glimpse of it - I missed a lot of it - but thankful for the little part I did get to see.

Oftentimes we look at a situation and all we see is the ugliness, the inconvenience, the frustrating aspects, the lack of something, and the opposite of what we really want. We need to look harder. we need to look differently.

Here is a picture of a spot in my backyard that isn't the prettiest.

I have a few spots like this - but here is one. When I look at this, I see a mess. For the sake of today, I was determined to look harder and find beauty in this ugly mess. It took me 45 minutes with my macro lens, but I was able to find some things that I wouldn't have been able to spot at a glance or even with my eyes alone...the beauty of budding flowers and new life!

 This little flower is dead - but I love how it looks like it is dancing in the breeze.

 This was a combination of a few pictures put together.

Sometimes we might not find a lot to be thankful for or a lot of beauty in the mess. I had to look really hard just for a few shots - and it was windy which made capturing them near impossible with a macro - but there was something!! Find the hope! Find the joy! Don't settle for just the mess.

In what unlikely spot in your life today can you find something beautiful or something to be thankful for?