Content

Well, of course there are many things to appreciate about this season.

There is Time. Time to be quiet (if I can discipline myself to shut out the distractions); time to read and think and pray. Time to write, to polish that skill. Time to be a special guest at Heidi's preschool sessions, to give Peter and Lucy their evening bath, to snuggle with Annie, to sew with Heidi. Time to create, with sewing machine, or apples and butter and flour, or paper and paste. Time to run in the woods. Time to say yes to a drive over the mountains to pick up John, or designing a handout for an upcoming event, or a morning downtown visiting old friends at the bakery.

And there is Opportunity. What door is not open to me, what responsibility binds me, what factor limits my future? In great measure, I am free to choose.

But sometimes it is easy to wish away these days and look ahead to a time when I'll feel productive and purposeful, when I won't deliberate and wonder what to do with each moment. It's easy to think that if I could formulate and implement a perfect set of circumstances, THEN I would be content.

And also easy to believe that if I try instead to be content with and even grateful for this, for what I have today, then I would in some way be preparing myself for failure if my dream ever were to come to pass, or giving up hope that things will ever change, because I would be learning to love and live with what I don't hope will continue forever.

When really, after all, the best preparation for contentment tomorrow, whatever it may hold, is not being dreaming of how to be content with what you wish for but actually being content today, right in this moment.