This past Tuesday was a really good day, but not for any particular reason.

 

It started off like every day has lately. I worked for a few hours in the morning, then worked out, showered, and cooked myself lunch. Pretty mundane, but I think it also helped that it was one of those rare February days where the sun came out and temperatures ventured over 60 degrees for a few hours.

 

 

I took my lunch outside and sat in the sun for about thirty minutes while I ate. I just sat there, the sun warming the bare bit of forearm poking out from the sleeves I had pushed up (my attempt to feel as much sun as possible on my skin). And as I sat there, I thought to myself how incredibly wonderful life felt in that moment.

 

I used to have these moments fairly frequently, however this was one of the first times I had felt this way in a loooong, long time. Thinking about where I was just six months ago, it drove home even more just how incredibly happy I felt in that moment. I was sitting on my porch, behind a house I’ve dreamed of owning for three years now, with my puppy exploring my yard around me.

 

 

When I was in Boston, for the majority of the time I felt lost, unwanted, and sad. I became impatient with my Heavenly Father, as year after year I felt like I was going nowhere and achieving nothing. Looking back, part of me can see that I was just being spoiled and ungrateful. But another part of me also knows it’s not that easy to dismiss the feeling of being unheard and lost. And so rather than beating myself up for my behavior in Boston, one of the biggest things I’ve learned about my Boston experience is to recognize these valleys of life for what they are capable of giving us: greater perspective down the road.

 

Remembering where I had emotionally been not so long ago, and sitting there in that sunlight, on my porch, in my yard, with my puppy exploring around me, I felt so completely content… and I felt grateful. Grateful that my Heavenly Father, who I whined at, complained to, yelled at, and even stopped trusting at one point, still loves me enough to have lead me to that moment on my back porch.

 

I have a house now. I’m back in Arkansas, where it feels like I belong. Life is simpler. I see my family all the time and I have friends. How my spoiled whining these past two to three years allowed me to get to this point, I don’t know, but it’s humbling.

 

 

As the normal cold temperatures of February return and chase away the warm respite of Tuesday, I hunker back down into my attic studio and think about how life takes you many places. Some expected, but most not.

So perhaps this post seems a little bit rambly, and perhaps random, but it felt important to me to write this post. If ever I fall back into my melancholy of the last few years, I’ll be able to see this and remember that for every valley, for every SINGLE valley, there is a mountain-top waiting to grant me perspective, humility, gratitude… and joy. And sometimes all it takes is a simple afternoon, spent sitting in the warm sun.