Therewith To Be Content*

I am really grateful for the last 3 months of my life.

Here is what I am grateful for:

-My children are healthy, bright, creative, and relatively well-adjusted
-I have abandoned the habit of wasting time searching for houses in areas that I think we might one day be interested in living
-I have learned that beating yourself up about past decisions is a complete and utter waste of mortality. We do the best we can and then we move on. I have wondered if we made ill-informed decisions that have thrust us into less than ideal circumstances, but then I remember that every step of the way we have searched, pondered, prayed, and done our very best. And I believe God would have stopped us if our direction had been bad. In these last few months, perhaps learning has been more important than success.
-My marriage is stronger. We appreciate each other more. We love each other more deeply. We laugh and enjoy and have become prolific texters. I have a fabulous, caring, sensitive, funny, and super hot husband. And I think I know that more today than I did three months ago.
-I have a profoundly generous mother who lets us live with her, reacts gracefully when my children break her things, and is trying hard to be positive as she watches her daughter grapple with some very difficult things. In some ways we look at life in far different ways, but I have learned how blessed I am to have such a generous mother.

In short, I have become a better person in the last few months, and I don't know that this growth would have been possible in any other way. I don't anticipate that we are moving out of this phase anytime soon. And that is okay. I think that perhaps what I am most grateful for is that I am living in the present more now than I every have before. I am truly taking each day for what it is. Perhaps it will go well, perhaps it will not. Perhaps my kids will be calm, quiet, and love all my ideas. . . but most likely they will not. And still, life goes on. Still, I can glorify God. I can be content. He has brought me a long way in learning how to do that. I feel a new tranquility settling into my soul. That is a miracle. God is a God of miracles. Even the ones we thought we didn't want.



*PHILIPPIANS 4:11