Today was a near perfect day. The kind of day you leave behind and think, wow - that really just couldn't have gone any better. The kind of day you hold up as a benchmark and measure other days against. The kind of day that you blog about, or share perfect pictures of on facebook, giddy with the perfection of it all.
It was a golden day where home life felt peaceful, homeschool felt feasible, happiness attainable. My list was completed and I even added a few fun things just because. I delighted in my children, something that truthfully doesn't happen every day. One of those days. The kind that crop up every once in a while just when you think you're losing your touch to remind you of why you do what you do.
A day where contentment was easy and gratitude effortless. A day where happiness was as plentiful as sunshine and everything felt right. A pretty rare sort of day for me, to be completely honest.
I was thinking about contentment while prepping dinner and watching my kids (and a few spares) run around outside. I've always thought contentment is something I have down. Material "stuff" isn't a big draw for me. I'm drawn to little happinesses like baking in the fall and rocking babies to sleep. Being content with fewer and smaller things isn't a struggle, and so I can think that being satisfied is not a battle I'm fighting. I may think that, but I'd be wrong.
Contentment isn't just being happy with what you are given. Contentment is trusting that, even if you don't understand why everything is falling apart, that what God is doing in your life is for His glory. It doesn't always feel nice, or easy. Sometimes it's dark and wretched and hard. Sometimes you wonder if you'll give right out, broken in two, irreparable. That's where the trust comes in.
This is where contentment draws a hard line for me to cross. Not by living life small and simple, but living life trusting. Trusting that what He has for me today is where I'm meant to be. Not just on the golden happy days, but on the bleak ones, too. The days where the very thing required of me is the very last thing I'd prefer to be doing.
Contentment is the daily exercise of accepting the work He has for you today, no matter what it is. Satisfied in living by trust, offering up everything. The tough, the bleak, the broken and the beautiful. Living each day knowing He can use it all for His glory and our good.
I can content my heart with that.
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Beautiful. We have to savor these days, as you say. They aren't all hard and they aren't all good, but we have to take note of what is shining in front of us. God is here, too.
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