When paradise isn’t so paradise-y

Sometimes paradise really is paradise.

And sometimes, it’s not. :)

Like when the old washer in your house insists on overflowing, even after it’s been fixed, and you have to get freezing cold water off the freezing cold tile and into the freezing cold outside.  For the fourth freezing cold time that week.  So you wash eight people’s freezing cold clothes by hand for a while till you figure it out.

Or when the cabin’s kitchen really has no pantry, but mice are a very real problem in the woods, so you figure it out.

Or when pilot lights and thermocouples go out in old furnaces on cold nights, and you figure it out.  (Don’t worry, mom.)

Or when babies get croup and any other number of things, and you figure them out.

I’m not complaining.  I really am in paradise.  But I think that something I’ve remembered this week is this: paradise isn’t paradise because it’s without troubles or difficulty.  Paradise is paradise because it’s right.

I’m in the right place with the right little people, and my soul is resting.  This is paradise, for us.

Life is so quiet here.

Things move at a different pace.

It doesn’t feel right to rush here.

Schedules don’t exist the way they used to.  I’ll write more about that later, but for now, I’m just so grateful, because really, I’ve had paradise all along.

I’ve had people I love, and they love me back.  I’ve had light and joy and a full, full life.

This perfect place is just a beautiful, added blessing.  It’s heaven and it’s where I belong.  But it’s paradise because of the people here with me. :)