Saddest Comment Made To Me By A Complete Stranger [This Week]

So, after a really awful 3 weeks with my husband being sick, in the hospital, home but still sick, and now, Praise God, doing better [THANK YOU for your prayers!] - we went to the grocery store today.

We were really having fun. We felt like we were sticking our heads out from the bomb shelter after the seige and it was nice.

I had Monkeys 2, 3, 4, and 5 with me. Monkey1 stayed home with her dad [she seems to have hit adolescence all of a sudden - and she's not quite 9. What's up with that?!].

So, we are cruising around the Publix with Monkey3 and 4 in the "race car cart". I've got Monkey5 in a backpack on my back. And Monkey2 is having the time of his life with his new spiderman "wheelies" [Kids Consignment Sale - 6$!! Best deal of all!], holding onto the cart and rolling along.

Everybody had gotten some watermelon to sample from the produce lady who was so sweet to offer it to them. We'd had a chat with the assistant manager, who has known us since Monkey3 was in the baby backpack! We'd exchanged jokes with Billy, the elderly gentleman who is the most awesome bag person in the whole world. Everybody was happy. We were laughing and buying groceries and just feeling normal after weeks of scary chaos. It was awesome. I was so glad to be out and about with my precious kids, enjoying life!

I saw another mom with three young kids - hers looked about 4, 2, and 9 months. They were really cute and seemed to be behaving really well. As we passed, I smiled and started to speak to tell her how cute her kids were. But before I could speak, she looked at me and said:

"I guess it is true what they say. Just when you start to feel sorry for yourself, you see someone even worse off than you are" And she looked around at all my kids. [And I only had 4 of the 5 with me!]

Wow. How sad. It took me back for a moment. I am used to getting all kinds of crazy comments from people out in public - mostly they are positive these days because my Monkeys have such great manners and are really nice kids. But I get the more than occasional roll of the eye and "You've certainly got your hands full" or "You poor thing!". At this point, I just smile and say "Oh, we have SO much fun". Because we do.

But this lady's comment made me feel so sad - not sad for me or my children, but sad for her and hers. Hopefully she was just having a bad day. But it was such a startling thing to hear from her - I was there just flat rejoicing in doing something so simple with my lovely children. We were all so happy and filled with joy. And she looked at us and saw "someone worse off than me".

Wow.

I'm glad I'm living my life and not hers.

Thank you Jesus that I'm "so bad off". The rest of the world should be this lucky!