Let me just start this post with a warning:  expect total hideous (and possibly humiliating) honesty here.  Notice I left out the word “profound.”  This is a pretty surface-y piece of writing….but words won’t be minced.

Some days I feel like a total failure.

Sometimes that feeling is extended over several days, and the week in general is checked off as an abysmal waste of effort.

For instance? Well…here are some hypothetical scenarios..

–You forgot to buy your kid a new clarinet book which he truly told you he needed every-single-day for TWO weeks yet you couldn’t get it together and his teacher gave him an ‘F’ in participation.

–You remember to get everything need for dinner into the crock pot and you even remember to turn the darn thing on.  You just forget to plug it in.

–You try to help your mom out by vacuuming her basement and instead get the fringes of her antique oriental rug caught in the roller of the vacuum cleaner….ruining both the rug and the vacuum.  And now the house smells like burnt rubber.

–You finally remember to return a text.  After painstakingly typing it out and sending it, you receive a confused reply  FROM THE PERSON YOU ACCIDENTALLY SENT PERSONAL INFORMATION TO.

Or…you leave the freezer open and ruin $23,421 of food. You inadvertently set the alarm for PM instead of AM (or vice versa…both in one week) and wake up late OR wake everyone in the family up at 3am.  You forget to move the sheets to the dryer and don’t discover the wet musty mess until it’s waaaaaaay past bedtime. You order lemon-pepper hot wings (which everyone hates) instead of Greek-hot wings (which everyone loves) and end up with hungry grumpy people and 56 leftover chicken pieces.

What else?  Oh–you get to the post office and realize you left your package at home. You burn the brownies and then eat an entire box of yellow peeps. You forget a family member’s birthday and  undercook the chicken. You buy the wrong size batteries and then you call somebody by their husband’s ex-wife’s name.

Shall I go on? Couldn’t we all add to this list?  I could probably continue for 17 more pages–and this is just in a seven-day time span!

As I was drowning my sorrows in a full-sugar full-milkfat latte (possibly accompanied by a cake-pop) and internally bashing myself for the seemingly never-ending list of failures of my week, I realized that there was nothing productive about this self-berating session I was conducting. Sure, I goofed. A few times. Yes, I lost will-power and I messed things up. More than once. But…according to God….I’m really not supposed to be dwelling (or obsessing!) on that.

“Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things.”            –Philippians 4:8

Surely I got something right this week?? Surely I didn’t mess everything up??

I decided to end my week by making a list of my victories.  Some are larger than others….and some may not be considered a victory by anyone other than myself.  At the end of the day (or week) however, a victory is a victory…no matter how small.

1. I remembered to buy toilet paper AND put some in each bathroom.
2. I got all of the laundry done from our trip–including the hand wash only items.
3. I added an actual image of one of my photos to a google document (whatever the heck that is) AND printed it when my middle schooler didn’t know how.
4. I got my car onto the automatic tracks at the car wash without the attendant having to direct me to the right or the left.
5. I remembered the names of my 3rd grader’s 4 “favorite-for-this-week” stuffed animals.
6. I knew what a text abbreviation meant when NONE of my offspring did.   IM KWL.
7. Even though I forgot to grocery shop, I created a not-so-bad dinner from the stuff I found already in the house.
8. None of the myriad of children (and small rodents) in my care suffered serious injury or died of malnutrition while I was in charge.
9. I found the TV remote that was “lost forever.”
10. I found my teenager’s watch that was “lost forever.”
11. I discovered I can still recite Juliet’s entire “Romeo, Romeo” speech by memory.
12. When my printer ran out of ink I successfully installed new cartridges which just so happened to be already purchased and sitting in the desk drawer.
13. I did not eat an entire box of yellow peeps.  I threw the last two to my dogs.

There’s a saying that goes, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.”  That’s probably true…but I would like to slightly amend it to: “Celebrate the small stuff.” Sometimes life just happens and serves us up a heaping helping of messes and mishaps. Even in those seasons though…there are still victories to be found. Sometimes it’s as small and simple as taking one more step, one more breath, or making your mouth turn into the shape of a smile. If that’s the best we can do….if that is the most productive thing we can acheive…then I say, celebrate it!

Find the victories in your day.  They are there….I promise.  Then celebrate them.  And FYI…a fulll-sugar full-milkfat latte is a great way to celebrate.