These last few months have been a roller coaster for me. Between my family and both our extended families we have experienced some of life’s highest highs and some of its lowest lows all within a matter of just a few months. In those months there have been days of being happier than I could have ever imagined and there have been days of being sadder than I ever wanted to, but in both the happy and the sad days I have felt tremendous gratitude for the peace that comes from knowing that I have a Heavenly Father who is always there for me in good times and bad.
Last night, after a long day full of emotional conversations, my daughter and I both stood in front of a large bowl of ice with water. You see as a teenager I had read this book that gave some of the secrets that supermodels use to always look good, and one of the secrets the book shared was that anytime you have swollen eyes from crying you should get a large bowl and fill it with ice and water and then you dunk your face in the ice water and hold it in the water for as long as you can stand it…then you lift your face up and take a deep breath and dunk it again…and you repeat that as many times as you are able until you can’t take the cold anymore and it helps reduce the swelling in your eyes and face (not all the way, but a little). Anytime you dunk your face it takes a moment to get up your courage because once you have tried it you know how much it is going to hurt! So here my daughter and I stood staring at the bowl of ice water in front of us yet again, for what felt like the millionth time in the last few months, and suddenly we both began laughing out loud because neither of us wanted to have to be the one to go first tonight.
Finally I bit the bullet and went first, challenging her that we would make it into a bet tonight to see who could keep their face in the water the longest. I lowered my face into the bowl and she started the stop watch, except she didn’t hit start right away so by the time she said “one” I had already been in the water for several seconds…which made us both crack up hysterically. Each time one of us would put our face in the other would start to laugh and cause the person in the water to pull their head up again. The laughter felt so good and it helped lift all the weight of the day away. But our eyes were getting any less swollen so we decided it was time to get serious and put our faces in the water. My daughter, in an attempt to give us both a pep talk said “We just got get our faces in that bowl and leave it all on the ice …leave it all on the ice”. Again we started laughing …she was right….some days are happy and some days just aren’t, and when the days come that aren’t the best thing to do is go get a bowl of ice with water, muster up all the courage you’ve got, dunk your face, and leave it all on the ice baby…take all the troubles and leave ‘em all on the ice…
Have an amazing day everyone!
~Amy Rees Anderson
