At least three times a week, I tell my kids, “Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do. It’s part of growing up.”

And at least three times a week, I tell myself the same thing.

I really wasn’t in the mood to decorate for Christmas this weekend. It’s gray and rainy and what I really wanted to do was curl up with a book and a blanket. But their excitement was contagious. So I wrestled box after box up from their nook under the basement stairs.

I tried not to think about putting each thing away again in January.

My husband lit a fire in the fireplace and we turned on the Mannheim Steamroller Christmas ice-skating show. The kids dug out all their special ornaments and clumped them all at the bottom of the tree. My daughter set up the nativity scene on top of the piano, and my heart warmed to the memories we were making.

As the rain continues to pour this morning, and I drag four weary bodies through the morning getting-ready-for-school routine, I grumble about how this is the last thing I want to be doing. I’d much rather be researching graduate schools and debating between an MDiv and a ThM and a counseling certification than reminding children again to put socks and shoes on. The dinner conversation on this topic with Scott Friday night and the phone conversation with a new friend whet my appetite and fed my dreams, but for now, that is what they are. Dreams.

I have to remind myself that this right here, the socks and shoes, the vacuuming, the dish washing, and the cleaning out of a peanut butter jar a boy ate directly from with his hands… this is my work for today. Dreams are fine, but sometimes I have to do what I don’t want to do because it’s the right thing to do.

Today I’m continuing to count 1000 every day gifts with Ann Voskamp at A Holy Experience. Today’s post includes gifts #591-607.

What have you had to do lately that you didn’t want to do? How did you make yourself do it anyway?

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