I gave it my best!

Dear Friend,

Yesterday we reached several milestones, Josiah promoted to high school and I watched Judah successfully close out a school year. As we were eating dinner, their Uncle Curtis was asking them about their grades. I showed him Judah's grades, which included a few A's, a few B's and two C's. As Curtis reviewed the grades, Judah began to explain to him why he had a C in History. It was a tough year memorizing the states and putting them on the map. I was looking at something else but listening to them, and what I heard next is what, really caught my attention.

Curtis said, "Judah did you give it your absolute best?", Judah said, "Unc, I did!", I looked up and smiled and thought, you know what he did. We fought through several other obstacles this year, as well as balancing out lives and our schedules and I had to pause and realize success isn't always measured the way we think. I watched us all give this year do our very best, it wasn't perfect but even when things seemed difficult we kept pressing towards the higher mark, to finish and make this a successful school year, and I have to say I think we do this well. Paul said it best, "Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is a head."

I hope you take some of that with you, that you see your successes this past year instead of your failures. That you choose to press toward the higher mark and enjoy your summer, instead of focusing on all the things that went wrong. Evaluate and move forward.

Summer Ready,

LMJ