I can’t tell you how many handprints are smudged on these walls and how sweeping crumbs off floors is a loosing battle around here. Glass windows and doors are not clear and unmarked for long, nor are steel appliances. My temper and lack of patience is just as messy.

From a quick outside glance at other people’s lives you’d think some were perfect, but in reading further I’m reminded of struggles and pain others face, everyone does.

And I can see how fleeting time is, my babies growing almost-too-heavy-to-carry. I don’t want ongoing dirt and grime of life to distract from this disheveled beauty wild and alive right before me. But it’s hard to see glory in the chaos we daily make.

Maybe more importantly than what  the distractions are, is the distraction from savoring life itself? Five years from now I could be working a desk job, along with having tweens, and during that stage Lord knows there’ll be a host of new challenges.

So it’s really less about what  I’m struggling with as a mom to a 7, 5, and 3 year old — or the country I’m living in — quirks in the house we’re renting — things I long to pursue — it’s about finding the good and precious in life today and not letting current difficulties cover that.

Perhaps you have challenges in your ‘life stage’ covering the good right before you?