Bubbles of Happiness

Happiness: it's something we'd all like more of, but find it difficult to achieve at times. In my recent reflections on happiness, two thoughts have emerged continually.

The first is this: happiness is an elusive goal. Having intentional goals to capture--or achieve--or produce--happiness doesn't always seem to work; in fact, many times it seems like just the opposite happens. The more I think, "I'm going to do this, and then I'll be happy," the less real happiness I seem to possess. We've all heard the fallacy of this line of thinking: "When I'm married, then I'll be happy" or "When my baby is potty-trained, then I'll be happy" or "When I get the house decorated for Christmas, then I'll be happy." But, despite my awareness of the falseness of that, I admit that, from time to time, I still find myself following those dead-end rabbit trails in my mind.

Here's my second recurring thought: I think about whether I'm happy way too much. Maybe the "am I happy?" question isn't the right one to ask. Maybe it should be "is God happy?" Is He pleased with me? Have I been faithful today? Have I done the right thing? Have I sat at His feet and rejoiced in His grace? Have I showed Christ in my interactions with others? I've learned from the first point, that when I reach for personal happiness, I sometimes come up empty-handed...but it's become even clearer to me recently that as I ask the more meaningful questions in this second point, happiness is very often a by-product of that. Any decent therapist knows that the more we navel-gaze, the more miserable we become. Get outward-focused, make a positive difference for someone else, and happiness finds us.

I say all of that as a prelude to writing about bubbles of happiness that I've encountered in my path recently. Bubbles, like happiness, are difficult to grasp when you reach for them...they are fleeting...they should be savored in the moment since they'll soon be gone...and they are beautiful. Sometimes in the course of my days, these bubbles of happiness rise up all around me; and I'm blind to them. I see right through them, never once realizing that, "hey, these are happy moments!" Certainly my camera and this blog help me to capture them and savor them, long after the bubble has popped and the moment is gone.

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Bubble #1

Last Thursday, Josiah was seized with a strong desire to earn some money. Knowing that Grandpa and Grandma pay him a dime for every book that he reads, he proceeded to go to the bookshelf and pull off book after book after book to read. This occurred on a day when I was quite busy preparing for a large gathering of people that was coming the next evening, so I benefited greatly from Josiah's concentration on this project...and so did David who enjoyed the privilege of having his big brother read lots and lots of stories to him!

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Bubble #2

Last Sunday afternoon was Josiah's last soccer game for this season (postponed from Saturday because of rain). He was delighted that, in addition to David and Tobin and I, his grandma was able to come watch him as well! (Jeff would have come, too, of course, but was gone for the afternoon and evening at a Pastoral Council retreat and was, sadly, unable to be in two places at once!) Josiah so badly wanted to score a goal during this game (as he has during most of them), especially to impress Grandma; and he did--the only one his team scored, in fact. I'm not sure if he or I was happier! :)

When Josiah played soccer a year and a half ago, he was only 4 years old and was definitely one of the youngest and least talented on his team. He had a great time, however, so I didn't regret the experience a bit; but it has been nice this time around to have him be older, stronger, and more skilled. He and Elissa (pictured above) were probably the best players on the team and were often found on defense together. Oddly enough to me, Josiah loves being the goalie (although they're not really allowed to have a goalie in this league)...odd to me because during my experience playing soccer, that was by far my least favorite position. All those balls coming at me! Horrors! ;)
Good sportsmanship is strongly emphasized in this league, and I've never seen a coach or parent lose their cool. It's a beautiful thing to see! (And see those scarlet trees in the background of the above photo...another truly beautiful thing!)
At the end of the game, Josiah was awarded a medal of participation which he proudly wore home; then he got his medal from the last time he played and draped them both around his teddy bear. How sweet is that! A little later, he gave one of the medals to David to wear and then hang on his shelf since Josiah didn't need two...and that is even sweeter. :)

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Bubble #3

From time to time, the boys got very gung-ho about stickers; and the sticker bug hit them again recently. Fortunately for them, my dad had received a huge bag of stickers in the mail from some company who intended for him to pass them out to the children he treats in his medical practice; and he, not needing nearly all the stickers, passed them along to two very grateful children who happen to be related to him! :) The stickers had sat in our craft/homeschool closet for quite some time, just waiting for eager hands to grab for them. These pictures were taken on Monday morning when some serious "stickering" was in progress.

I enjoyed watching Josiah and David sort the stickers by type and make long rows of matching ones on their paper. They got along extremely well doing this project, and the fact that there were plenty of stickers made that easy, I suppose!

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Bubble #4

Since the day of victory when I gathered the first egg from our chickens, we had consistently received one egg per day...which is great, but not when you have five hens that you expect to lay! Last Tuesday, I made a great discovery: one hen likes to lay her eggs in the chicken coop (where we wanted them all to lay since it's easy to reach them); however, one or more of the other ones prefers laying under an old picnic table in their enclosure, so on this particular day, I discovered four eggs under there when I went out to gather the normal one from the coop! Later on in the day, I found another one under the table. To be clear, we did not have six eggs laid in one day--that would be pretty extraordinary to have more eggs in a day than hens--but our temperatures had been cool enough to refrigerate the eggs during the extra time they were left outside so I happily gathered them up and brought them in, gratified to know that our hens were not all duds after all. :)

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Bubble #5

What are you doing, Tobin Bear? Reaching for David's bicycle helmet, hung on the handlebar of his tricycle? Does that look interesting to you? Don't you know you might pull the whole tricycle over on top of yourself?

Ah, now you're just going to smile for the camera and act all innocent? You think you can fool me? I know what you're up to, little one. You're just making us all fall in love with you more and more; that's what you're doing!

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Bubble #6

On Wednesday, Jeff bought something for himself that he's been wanting for a very long time--a food processor. (In my defense, I didn't know he wanted it or I would have gotten it for him!) He immediately got it set up and used it to make salsa which he then canned. Even Josiah got into the act, dropping jalapenos down the long tunnel to be ground up finely.

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Bubble #7

Yesterday, as my mother raked up pine needles to use for mulching some flowerbeds, David got to be outside with her and had so much fun cavorting as she worked. She would rake up a pile, he would jump in them (I don't know why, but jumping into pine needles just doesn't sound like much fun to me), then roll around, do somersaults, lie on his back and kick his feet up (like he's doing in the picture below), etc.

And then, even though it's hard to see in the picture below because I was taking these pictures from our house and my parents' swing set got in the way, he got to ride in the wheelbarrow as Grandma pushed it. Is life good or what?

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Bubble #8

Tonight was our church's annual Hallelujah Party, a much-anticipated event in our household, particularly among the under-4-feet-tall crowd. I gave them an option of being a cowboy (with a sheriff's badge), a giraffe, a railroad conductor, or a joker--costumes we already had. :) Josiah instantly claimed the cowboy one (weren't you a cowboy last year? oh, yeah! you were; but hey, if it doesn't bother you to repeat, it doesn't bother me either!), and David, despite my guess that he would want to be the train man, steadfastly said he'd be the joker. Really, it's fitting, I suppose.

I asked David and Josiah to be still like statues so I could get a clear picture in the fading light, so this is the pose they gave me.

Then I asked them to look at each other...

...and then to give each other a hug. The cowboy sheriff hugs the joker, and there is peace on earth.

Meanwhile, this little guy stole the show. Not only was this green hat lots of fun for Tobin to hold and even chew, it also helped people identify what he was. If that long green thing is a stem, then...let's see...

...oh!...of course!...he's a chili pepper!

And now, at this late hour, my chili pepper, joker, cowboy, and their daddy are all sleeping peacefully--happily--and I'm off to join them. Tomorrow will undoubtedly bring more bubbles of happiness floating my way. May I have eyes to see them!