Today was like many summer Saturdays before. My whole family was outside with our Enos, golf clubs, baseball bats and cookout gear. However, unlike every other Saturday, the floodgates of heaven opened, and we got completely soaked before we could get the top back on the Jeep and everything packed away. My eyeliner was running, and it seemed like everything we owned was soaked through. This probably sounds like a pretty imperfect day, but I loved every minute of it. As my brothers and I raced to my oldest brother's truck, our laughter could probably be heard across the park. When my other brother tried to make my eyebrow gel smear, my abs hurt from laughing so hard. Our day was pretty imperfect, but the joy we all shared was priceless.
As I sit here in my fuzzy pajamas watching the rain roll down the window of our family room, I can't help but stare at the picture on our bookshelf beside me. The picture that my mom thought was OK to print and put in a frame for everyone to see. I've grown to love that picture. The picture in which I look like a man and my brothers... well, they're just weird. Our imperfect little life, our imperfect little love, perfectly captured in a 4x6 frame. What isn't to love about witnessing so much joy in my brothers' hearts? What isn't to love about embracing our imperfections and finding happiness despite them?
Our lives are never going to be perfect. No matter how much we plan a fun afternoon, a thunderstorm will still blow up out of nowhere. No matter how put together our outfit is, we will still trip on the last step and spill coffee down our shirt. No matter how much we study, we are still going to barely pass that stupid test. Things happen, and sometimes life isn't as great as we thought it would be. Some days, we are going to want to climb back into bed and start the day over, and some days, we are going to want to quit. We were never promised a perfect life, but there are those perfect moments.
Perfect moments come out of imperfect situations. As I laughed alongside my brothers in the rain, I felt so much joy and so much love for those goofy goobers, and I will always remember the beauty and perfection of that moment. Next time your day seems ruined or you just want to go back to sleep, pull a perfect moment out of your imperfect day and cling to it. Never forget that joy or that love. Never forget how happy you were in that moment. It is moments like a laugh in the rain that keep us moving, keep us pressing forward. I encourage you today to create your own perfect picture of an imperfect day.
