Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Accept Defeat

When things go wrong and there is nothing more that you can do to fix it then sometimes it is time to accept defeat and keep moving forward.

The Necklaces

My girls got necklaces this year for Easter. They had pendant fairies on them with tiny jars of fairy dust. I knew the girls would love them and they did. They put them on right away and took great care of them. The next day one of my daughters had her jar of glitter in her mouth and was kind of chewing on it. And it breaks and fairy dust, aka glitter, goes everywhere including all over her mouth. I would be upset and could tell that she was but she was hiding it from us very well. I took her upstairs to get away from everyone and to clean the glitter off of her tongue and make sure that she didn't get cut. I asked her if she was sad about her necklace and immediately the wall she had up fell and the tears began to fall. "I'm really sad mom." And even though it was just a thing and maybe doesn't mean much to me I felt for her. I felt bad knowing that she tried to have a strong face because she knew that she really shouldn't have had that necklace in her mouth. It was her fault. So she should pretend like it doesn't bother her? It was okay for her to be upset I understood how she felt and I held her and let her cry and let her be disappointed. I had a friend who told me they were having another baby really close to another baby they had and she said, "I know it was my choice but I still want to be able to have feelings and share feelings when things get hard, because I know they will."

Within minutes of the first incident my other daughter tripped and fell and saved herself from falling into the entertainment stand but as she did her new necklace flung forward and hit the entertainment stand and broke. She didn't notice until later when one if her sisters saw the glitter on the ground and told her. She was sad and felt bad that her new necklace was ruined.

Later that same day the daughter with the only left jar of fairy dust didn't want to give me her necklace because she was afraid I would break or loose it. She promised herself that she wouldn't let hers break, so she put it in her coat pocket when we got ready to go swimming. When I left the house and saw the coats sitting by the front door I thought I better bring them because even though they weren't needed now, on this early spring day, they would need them when it was dark and cold and they were wet leaving the pool. So I grabbed the coats. Later, when my daughter realized I brought the coats she looked for her necklace and couldn't find it she had thoughts of a lost and broken necklace and worried about it until we got home. Luckily, we found the necklace on the porch outside the front door but unluckily the necklace had been stepped on and her glass jar was broken and there was glitter all over the porch. She was devastated. She was sad that her new necklace was broken but more then that she was upset that she had broken her promise to herself. I gave her hugs and understood why she was so upset. I hated breaking promises to myself and others.

I was also upset with myself for giving them such a breakable gift. I thought that they were tough jars but I was mistaken. I also thought they would just love them. Well, they did love them enough that they were so upset that they were broken. I felt like I set them up to fail and that wasn't my intention at all. I could easily find other jars of fairy dust to give them to replace the broken jars but sometimes it is just best to accept my mistake and move on. There were some great lessons we learned from the jars of magic glitter we sprinkled about:

Lessons In Progress:

1.) Even though it may be your fault that something bad has happened it doesn't mean that you are not allowed to have feelings about it.

2.) When something you love gets ruined or broken or lost its okay to be upset about it.

3.) When your kids or others feel upset about something that you wouldn't be upset about. Find a situation in which you felt the same way they are feeling and your heart will melt!

4.) Because I wasn't angry with the kids I was able to help them and see their side.

5.) When you don't end up doing something that you said you would do, despite your best efforts, it doesn't mean that you are a bad person or that you are a failure. It doesn't mean that you should stop trying or that you aren't able to do something that you put your mind to, it doesn't mean that you don't have integrity. It means that sometimes things go the way we want or try but most of the time they don't. There is something better in-store for us and we must trust and accept that we don't always control everything and that things will work out for us.

6.) Trying to go back in time and fix things won't work. Accept that you make bad choices sometimes and just move on. You can't always get back what is lost.

7.) Its good that we don't have to worry about making up for what is lost because the savior makes up what we can't do. He knows those struggles we are going through and even when we mess up he is willing to put his arms around us and let us cry.