We interrupt the usual DIY, cutesy post today to keep it real with y’all.

Just like everyone, life behind the scenes (or blog) is as real as everyone else in the world and we have good days and bad. With Thanksgiving coming up we’ve had time to reflect and feel like sharing. We hope you share your stories of gratitude {the loss and pain that go with it, too} with us, too. Send us an email at hello@jsorelle.com.

No one ever said life was easy. We just didn’t know it was going to be so hard.

As we look at the big picture, yes we are alive and life is good. We all have a place to call home, wonderful and supportive parents, beautiful children, 2 out of 3 amazing husbands, love and each other. At the end of the day, it’s those little things that matter.

But that doesn’t mean we haven’t cried everyday, felt anxiety paralyze our bodies, mourned, felt like we were hit by a bus, prayed on our knees and worried until we lost sleep.

In just one year, we have mourned the loss of our grandma, come to grips with our grandpa’s Parkinson’s diagnosis, tried to make sense of a family member who we loved that lived a double life and deceived and hurt us beyond what our wildest dreams could have imagined, learned the pain and heartache of a divorce first-hand, been shocked by the loss of a dear friend and family member, and heard the stop-in-our-tracks, heartbreaking diagnosis of ‘childhood epilepsy’ of one of our own from a hospital room.

To be honest, some days it’s been hard not to hate and it feels impossible to forgive.

We are not complaining because we know there are stories of hardship and pain that are unfathomable, and for those of you who are in the midst of it, or through it, our hearts go out to you.

A wise friend once said, “When someone’s asks how I am, if I’m good, I say, I’m in between problems…because life has bumps in the road, and in between the bumps, life is good.” In between our ‘bumps’ this year, we have watched our children laugh and grow, witnessed the joy of a 1-year-old take his first steps, help our parents celebrate their 37th wedding anniversary, held each other close, felt the unconditional love of family by our side, laughed until we cried with friends and celebrated the pure joy of a pregnancy announcement (followed by morning sickness).

So are we grateful for his year? Yes. Do we wish it went down differently? Hell, yes. But we will take each breath, step and hope we can muster because at the end of the day, that’s all we have! We have grown closer to God this year and pray we’ve reached our heartbreak limit for the year.

After all this, what we know to be true is that everyday we have a choice. Do we wake up with anger in our hearts, scour at the world and the people who hurt us, hold on to life the way it was? Or, do we wake up with grateful hearts, accept life and who we are, choose to smile, remain humble and kind? We choose the latter {most days}, and that will save us. We will not take love for granted.

We’ve discovered that love, faith and family can get us through it…it doesn’t hurt to have awesome sisters by our side either.

We hope you find gratefulness in your heart this Thanksgiving. Lord knows we’ll be crying, praying and giving thanks as we go around and talk about what we’re grateful for at the table this year.

Keep us in your prayers, and we’ll do the same for you.

Thanks for listening.