Little Joys

This past weekend was a weekend full of little joys for me. Nothing major happened – good or bad – but it will be a weekend that goes down in my memory as one of the best. Why? Here is a sampling:

1. On Friday, I was treated to a lovely Mothers’ Day Tea by my son and his first grade friends. I got to wear a big beautiful hat that he made and hear him read me a story, and read me a lovely note he wrote for me. The note particularly made my heart smile.
2. On Saturday morning, I ran my 6th 1/2 marathon (13.1 miles) – the 500 Festival Mini Marathon in Indianapolis, IN. It was a new experience in the sense that I had a running partner that I was actually with the whole time. It made the run more enjoyable and go faster. It wasn’t my best finish time, but wasn’t my worst finish time either, and the weather was great, even with a little rain shower. It is a great feeling to know that I once again set a goal and accomplished it.
3. On Saturday evening I got to have dinner with some great people, including two of my best friends from high school, Crissy and Jenny. Both of them recently got married (on the same weekend) and it was great to be able to visit with their new husbands, as well as a couple of new friends. We had a nice LONG meal and conversation and it really made me appreciate the wonderful people who God has placed in my life and how blessed I am to have such great, long-time friends.
4. Sunday, being Mothers’ Day and travel home day, I didn’t expect to be that great of a day. But it really was a wonderful day with my family. Breakfast at the hotel, shopping on the way home, finding not one but two pairs of my favorite kind of flip-flops on sale and in my size at a little store we hadn’t ever been to before and getting a free pair of sunglasses with purchase, lunch at Culver’s that included a free sundae for mom, coming home to find baby robins hatched in the nest on our porch, watching Monsters vs. Aliens with my kids snuggled up with me on the couch, it was nothing overly amazing, just lots of little things that made the day special.
5. After all this there was a domestic disturbance about a block from our house. Three people were shot and two of them subsequently died. There was lots of activity from about 6:30 p.m. to sometime after we went to bed that included police, fire, ambulance, news crews and lots of curious onlookers. At the end of what was just a wonderful weekend for me, filled with lots of little joys, comes this big, sad, tragic event for another family.

This morning as I have been thinking about the perceived turn of events in my weekend, it made me realize that we have to choose to see the little joys in our lives every day, because when we don’t and all we see is the bad, then that is what we focus on and even if the bad is small, we make it bigger by dwelling on it. The reverse is also true as I found out this weekend. All these little joys that I experienced were nothing major, but as I look back on the weekend and see each little piece fit together, it makes a huge impact on my heart.

Here are a few shots of my weekend’s little joys!