Peace

Church began later today than its 9:00 time we had all of last year. It was a change that I have been looking forward to for quite sometime, getting a family of 5 up and ready for a 3 hour block of church is a challenge when you have to be there so early. Even though we didn't need to be there till 11:30 my morning was far from ideal. I bit my bottom lip twice in the same spot when trying to eat breakfast and then stepped into an argument with Jared that keeps finding its way back to the surface. When we were finally off to church I was emotional and distressed, far from the stress free that I had imagined I was going to be that morning. I pleaded heavenward for peace from what seems like so much useless turmoil in my life. I know what I want but when your a female you just have a hard time turning off the emotional feeling of it all. In my last class of the block my neighbor gave a lesson on a book that John Bytheway had written and I immediately was able to calm my distress and find a solution to how I can become more balanced in my expectations and life in general.
The lesson began with the discussion of contentment. In January it seems that everyone's focus is far off the mark of contentment because we all choose to add goals and a healthy (or unhealthy) dose of ambition to your expectations of the New Year. While its disguised as a great thing, and in some instances I guess it could be but it doesn't encourage contentment. When things are working great with me and Jared it is because of contentment. Peace prevails when we are happy with what we have and we aren't competing with the "Jones". When we are content with our own lives we have no desire to judge others and their life choices. I've been distressed because I wasn't recognizing what makes my life ideal for me and my family. We haven't happened upon our situation because this is just where we have ended up, we've made conscious choices that best fit our family framework to be where we are now. Today I re-found my appreciation for that reality and now I am working on remembering to be content with all that I have been truly blessed with. My life is exactly how I can handle it right now, all that I have deeply wanted to be, is; and if I can't find peace in that knowledge then I'm not going to find it anywhere else. So you can either be unsatisfied with what you have and miserable or  you can see the good and find contentment. I plan on choosing contentment this year and loving what I've got.