Perspective...

So today was a pretty crappy day. I'm usually a pretty optimistic person and can find the silver lining inside almost any cloud, but every once in a while it all just gets to me and I lose my mind for a minute. That was today. I'm stressed about time, stressed about money, frustrated cuz my house is always a wreck, overwhelmed with thinking about getting everything packed up and consolidated to move into a much smaller house 700 miles away from here, and also trying to be a good (or maybe even just tolerable) mom to my kids, not to mention everything else I have on my plate. It all just hit me today along with some other things which I won't bother to mention, but I spent half the day in tears and the other half about to be. I even screamed at my kids for a minute because I'm tired of them doing a half-assed job on everything and then I have to call them back 15 times to get them to do their jobs right. Then I went upstairs like a stupid sappy lovesick teenager and spent 20 minutes crying into my pillow. I then showered and got dressed for work, came downstairs to fix supper for the kids, and spent another 20 minutes on the phone with my mom, bawling like a baby. On the drive in to work I choked back tears because of some stupid song on the radio and walked into work looking and feeling like hell. Then I take report for my shift and pretty quickly God put everything into perspective for me. My patient right now is a 29 year old woman with leukemia. She's been sick for a couple years, had a bone marrow transplant a year ago, felt better for a while, but after a week up here in the ICU, died tonight. She has a very sad husband, a mother who's been holding her cold little hand for the last 2 hours, and a little 3 year old child at home. What an attitude adjusment for me. It's like God just slapped me upside the head and said, "What do you have to complain about." I mean really. I'm healthy, my kids are healthy, my entire family is healthy...all the way down to my 87 year old gramma. I can piss and moan and feel sorry for myself for all the petty stresses and problems in my life, or I can thank God for all the good things that he has given me and all the ways that he has blessed me and my children and kept us safe and healthy over the last year. And just because I struggle financially right now doesn't give me a right to complain because all of my NEEDS have truly been supplied. I get pissed cuz I don't have enough money to pay all my bills when I want to pay them or take my kids to the movies, but you know what...we have food in the fridge, a roof over our heads, and running water and electricity. I have a job, which is more than many people these days can say...and I even like it. So thank you Lord once again for putting things in perspective for me. I'm giving myself an attitude adjustment right now and I promise...tomorrow will be a better day.