Gratitude, Grace, and Grapes

My dear reader,

You might be astonished and even a little appalled to know that I was in a funk this morning.

Did it matter that I got up early, got in my scripture study, and actually made a decent breakfast?

Nope. 

Once teenagers have been awoken (awakened? woked?) and forced to join the "Come, Follow Me" discussion, NO level of preparation can counteract the attacks that will come your way through glares, heavy sighs, and moving at the slow pace of a sloth who doesn't feel a desire to open his scripture case. 

I am sometimes good at imperviousness to the arrows shot by my kids, but this morning my armor was chinked and they found the chink.

And I responded in kind.

I lectured, I cried, I came in heavy-handed with the guilt and probably some shame, too. 

I ended up finally taking a time out in my room, ostensibly to readjust my attitude but in reality to hide and numb out on my phone a little while avoiding the overwhelming To-Do List looming over me downstairs. 

I prayed and complained to God, and then when I had worked through my spiritual toddler tantrum, I was finally able to be back in a place where He could guide me.

"Go downstairs," I was nudged gently. 

I approached my children apologetically, and we began cleaning the house, one room at a time. 

I prayed about the To Do List and was prompted on which items to focus on, which to accept a sub-par cleaning on, and which to let go for another time when I was feeling less exhausted. 

I was grateful for God's grace in the mundane tasks of cleaning my children's half bath and picking up Legos off the stairs. These were simple tasks, true, but the sheer number of simple tasks needing to be done or directed by me and me alone had been overwhelming me for days now.

It felt miraculous to step back and look at our Family Room (now with a visible and vacuumed carpet), Half Bath (now smelling like cleaner instead of what it had smelled like before), and kitchen (with cleared off table and counters). 

Then we started working on our grapes.

We inherited a beautiful, old grape vine when we moved into our home. It's just one vine but it's probably around 20 years old and covers a large portion of our back yard fence. 

I absolutely love it. 

The grapes are ripening, and I haven't wanted them to completely go to waste, so I've been wanting to preserve them this year as much as I'm capable to do so. 

I'm not quite up for jelly and canning, but I knew I could freeze bags of grapes for kids to snack on, so I figured that's what we'd do. 

I sent the kids out to pick and finished cleaning the kitchen in preparation.

I severely underestimated the amount of fruit one very productive grape vine can produce. 

The kids came in, giggling and excited, with bowl after bowl of ripe, sweet, juicy grapes to dump into the sink. 

Once the sink was full, I called a stop to the picking. 

"How much of the vine did you pick?" I asked them.

"Oh, maybe 1/2..." one of my sons responded. 

"Not even! Probably like 1/4!" my daughter corrected him. 

As I glanced at the grapes in the sink, recognizing the abundance of one vine, my mind was overwhelmed with gratitude. 

Gratitude that what had started out as a pretty rough day had now turned into a family project with mostly good attitudes.

Gratitude that my home was not perfect but at least inviting in its cleanliness. 

Gratitude for these nourishing, tasty snacks that my children would enjoy for months to come.

Gratitude for the opportunity to set goals to learn how to be a better steward of this grape vine so that its fruits could serve us even better in the future. 

Gratitude for the visible reminder to me of the grace of God, which always ALWAYS is more abundant and rewarding than I expect it to be. 

"And again, I exhort you...that ye deny not the gifts of God, for they are many...." ~Moroni 10:8