Count it all joy

A couple of nights ago I had trouble sleeping. The next morning, I woke up and began praying that God would allow me to find joy in all the things that normally drive me crazy. When my kids ran screaming through the house five minutes later, I mustered up some joy that I have kids with functioning lungs.

When I tripped over the five-loads' worth of laundry waiting to be folded, I said a little prayer of thanks for all the clothes, the people in my house who wear them, and a working washing machine and dryer.

When I called our previous pediatrician's office two hours later to inquire as to why they haven't sent over my kids' medical records to our family practice doctor (whom we've been seeing for more than a year now) despite three attempts to get them to do so and they informed me it would cost $15 per record and they didn't know when they could get it done, well, I ran out of joy.

When Apple announced its newest gadget yesterday and how it will save lives, change diapers, and solve world hunger, I got excited. But, when I saw the price tag (and more unfortunately, the name---does Apple really have NO women on their product marketing team?), I had no joy for that.

While listening to the president's State of the Union address last night, I found myself throwing out snide little one-line remarks in response. Our kids were in the room and our 11-year-old started doing the same thing, which is not exactly what I want to teach her about politics. It isn't exactly what my husband wants me to teach her about politics, either, and he said as much in a way that made me stop with the one-liners. For the speech and the hiatus of my own personal punditry last night, I had no joy for that.

While lamenting over various and sundry of these joy-less situations on Facebook, an old college friend popped in to remind me to count it all joy anyway. After all, there are plenty of places in the world where medical records are the last things on people's minds---they would just like access to doctors.

And the iPad? Do I seriously need one more digital distraction in my daily life? Thank you God, that, no, I don't have one more way to check the wonderful World Wide Web.

And the State of the Union? There is that free speech thing in that we're able to respond with our thoughts without being arrested for them (and seeing as how my husband, Craig, live-blogged the speech last night, I take great joy in the fact that he will not be arrested, though I would be surprised if he didn't get himself flagged on some FBI watch list). I'm glad for our freedoms.

Counting it all joy---the laundry, the administrative hassles, the political disagreements---is what I learned about yesterday. How about you?