Living Joyfuly: Sweet and Salty

Whenever I make cookies, whether my famous "Everything Cookies", or my daughter's favorite Protein Packed Breakfast Cookies, I always add a bit of salt to the dough. Why? Because the salt enhances the sweetness of the cookies, and balances the flavors. Too much salt can ruin the batch, but just a little creates the perfect recipe.

In the same way, the salty parts of our lives--the challenges, the trials, and the frustrations--make the good times that much sweeter. My son's diagnosis, while devastating at the time and created many more challenges than we were ever expecting, has given me a new perspective on life. The saltiness of the situation is constantly reminding me of the sweetness in my life:

-I don't worry about the little things as much--they're really just little things.

-I'm grateful for the things I have. I recently read a quote that spoke to me. It said something to the effect of "The things you take for granted, someone else is praying for". How true is that?

-I realize that my attitude determines my life, not the other way around. There will always be challenges, and if I'm constantly waiting for one problem to resolve itself, I'll never be happy because something else will always pop up.

Yes, it is hard to be joyful in the most difficult of circumstances. Truthfully, I'm usually not. But, I also know that "this too shall pass", and when I finally make it out of the hardest parts, I look back and am grateful for the sweetness that the saltiness made me realize.


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