I’ve been nagged long enough. It’s been over a month since my last post and apparently, people are getting antsy for me to start writing again. Honestly, I have had a bit of a writer’s block. My lift is pretty mundane. Nothing too exciting happens and my continued adoption journey is at a bit of a stalemate for the time being. My plan is to return to Korea this year but when is still to be determined. I sent my third email today to follow up on the potential man who could be my biological father.

I suppose my thought on this “father” can be saved for another post. For now, you’re stuck with life lessons that I have learned from a campfire. Yeah, I didn’t think that was possible either.

Within the last month, I have gone camping/backpacking/hiking with my kids and their dad. Since moving to SC I’ve had the luxury of having a real fireplace in all the places I have lived. I say luxury because that didn’t happen in MN. I can’t deal with fake fireplaces, I love the smell and sound of a real fire.

Anyway, because my kids’ dad is into all the Bear Grylls survivor shows, I got stuck watching them as well. Long story short, I began learning how to start a fire from nothing but some tinder and a lighter. Okay, yes I cheat with using dryer lint but still. It’s my thing, leave it at that.

My son has taken a big interest in learning everything, seriously. From cooking, laundry (only when I make him) to reading like a champ the kid is an endless sponge. While we were camping one weekend it had rained the night before. I knew it was going to be wet and it was going to be a difficult task to start a fire but nonetheless, I was up for the challenge. Starting a fire with wet wood is not fun, in fact, it’s downright hard work. My son wanted to learn, and I wanted to be the one to teach him. We went out and along the trail that day we gathered tinder, I showed him what to gather and the types of things that we were looking at. I told him to gather twice as much as he thought he needed which still was barely enough but I took his helped and praised him along the way.

Something you should know about me…I’m competitive as hell, especially when it comes to things between his dad and me. I’ve got my son following my direction with his dad over my shoulder trying to tell me how to stack the wood. I shouldn’t have listened but I did and thankfully I didn’t listen for long.

While I was starting to get the fire started it took twice as long as I thought and easier than I made it be. Obviously, this got me thinking and I started putting things together. It made me think about life, and then I tried to explain such a profound thought to my son in which he only nodded his head and then asked to go down to the shore to play in the sand with his sister.

Here is it, my epiphany during that campfire. Life isn’t as hard as easy as we think it’s going to be. In fact, it’s quite the opposite…however we make life harder than it is. We create challenges and obstacles when none exist. We make our lives harder instead of better, easier and more fulfilling.

I was adding small tiny sticks to the fire when I had this epiphany, that we choose to make our lives harder than they really are. It’s crazy, I see people struggle every day with the most mundane complaints and it astounds me that people make their lives more complicated than they are.

After that weekend I learned a lot about myself and how I view life in general. I try to stop and think about how much of our lives is nothing more than a mist. James 4:14 “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” Our life is short. Don’t make it more difficult than you have too. Enjoy it. Every single moment. Don’t make it harder just learn to laugh and BE PRESENT.