When What We Ask For Is Harder Than We Expected.

We are getting ready to leave a friend’s house. She begs for a drinking. She is “sooooooo thirsty” she says. “PLEASE?!” she begs. Just one drink. She is given a bottle of juice. She climbs into the car and promptly drops the lid. For the next 15 minutes I listen to her complain….

She has to cover the top with her hand so it won’t spill and her hand hurts.

Her hands are cold.

She is tired.

She doesn’t want to hold it any more.

Please can’t I hold it for her?

And I shake my hand and stifle a sigh of exhaustion before it hits me that she and I are the same.

How often does it happen? I fixate on something. “Please, dear God,” I pray, “Please! This, THIS would make me happy.” Convinced I know what’s best I badger and beg till it is given to me…. Only to be surprised that there is no magic cure. That the gift I so desperately begged for is not an easy answer, but something that takes work.

Marriages

Children

Friends

Dream Jobs

Dream homes

All come with strings attached. All come with work and sacrifice and commitment.

How surprised we are to realize that happiness takes effort.

How reluctant we often are to do the hard things.

How many times have I been a four year old little girl, crying over the juice I begged for.

May I be willing
To do the work.

To get my hands dirty. 

To make the sacrifices.
Happiness takes effort and big dreams don't come easily.
May I be willing to accept that.