Guest

I'm featuring a guest blogger today,

another sweet momma with a precious little.

 I hope you'll follow the blog chain to check out the perspirations and inspirations of her beautiful life...

And if you're here just for her,
I hope you'll poke around at what's been new and beautiful in our life lately and stick around...

Hello! My name is Laurisa I write over at The Land of LA.

I write about my crazy life. About my marriage, my daughter, our joys and our struggles. My life is a beautiful disaster truly.  (But then whose isn’t)

Thanks Allison for letting me share here today.  Can I get a collective agreement about the beauty of her family? Just keep on making those babies Allison- they are too freaking cute. 

I have been learning the lesson of Joy & Hardship.

My daughter was born last year with a rare genetic disease. Tuberous Sclerosis. She lacks the Tumor inhibitor genes so she has heart tumors, and brain tumors- which cause seizures. (When I tell people this in person this is the point where their looks change from interest, to pity).  I assure you it really isn’t as bad as it sounds- my kid is a total joy-and sometimes a hot mess too-but mainly just a joy.

I am of the belief that life is half what you are handed and half what you make of it.  I cringe to say “if life hands you lemons, make lemonade”- in fact I HATE lemonade….but summer brew? I can get behind that.  So if life hands you lemons, grab a beer and made some summer brew. (Yeah- I drink, and I love Jesus…deal with it)

I do have a point.

I am learning that hardship does not subtract from the joy in my life. But it lives right along side of it. I think this is true with parenting in general, in life in general.  Because life is a balance of good & bad, joy & hardship.

If Emmaus has a great day, sits up well, is interactive with me, plays well, AND she has a bunch of seizures, do the seizures erase the good of the day?

Or if your kid was super sweet with their friend, shared things well, behaved well in the grocery store and then had a melt down before bed…does that ruin the whole day? 

I think we tend to give the bad more weight than the good.

I have had to learn to let the good outweigh the bad, and put very little emphasis on the bad. (sometimes, I fail and end up feeling sorry for myself- its pitiful, but I am working on dwelling on the joy, the good things!)

Then there are those days that nothing can go right. So grab your summer brew, glass of wine, or lemonade. Make your husband or friend take you out to a nice dinner, and go to bed. Wake up and try again tomorrow.