Just Keep Swimming

If you are a parent of a child ten or younger, I'm going to make a bet that you've seen Finding Nemo at least once. One of the best lines in that movie is Dory singing "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming". Can you even make something up that is more motivating than that? Nope, you can't. The tune is catchy, the words inspiring, and the message Godly. Yep, Godly. God is a God of perseverance; of pushing through the hard times. Pressing on towards the goal, you know.

When the kids are driving you bat stinking crazy and you have no idea how you are going to make it through dinner? Just keep swimming. You'll get there.

When you know that next week your spouse will be traveling and you'll have all the kids by yourself for days at a time and that is always when someone gets sick or hurt? Just keep swimming....and keep your insurance card close by.

When it's been raining for forty days and forty nights, and if it doesn't stop and dry up soon you will most likely shrivel up and die from lack of sunshine and a place for the kids to run around? Just keep swimming. It'll dry up soon.

When you've been potty training for what seems like years; maybe for actual, literal years, and your child calls you to the bathroom to show you that they did make it to the bathroom, and to prove it they fished a little something out of the toilet and laid it on the towel? Just keep swimming....and keep the 409 handy.

See what I mean? When you just keep swimming, you remember that all of life's irritations will pass. Maybe you'll swim a mile and they'll be gone. Maybe you'll swim a marathon and they'll be gone. But when you keep moving, you stop yourself from doing what never works: wallowing.

Wallowing never solved anything and just makes you annoying to be around. Better to be the fish, my friend.

So, be a fish today. Regardless of what you're looking at. If it seems insurmountable, if the list just seems too long or the kids too crazy, just keep swimming and do the next thing.

You'll make it, friend.