CONTENTMENT REVISITED

I haven't spent much time thinking about my word for the year in quite some time. That word was contentment. This morning when I read my devotional though which I get by e-mail evey day this is what it said:

"GOD OF SACRED PRESENCE,
may I know
that contentment is not found
in the place we live
but in the person we are.
Amen."

- Richard Morgan
Settling In: My First Year in a Retirement Community

From p. 164 of Settling In by Richard Morgan. Copyright © 2006 by the author. Published by Upper Room Books.

So this made me stop and evaluate how I am doing with contentment in 2008. For the most part I think I am doing pretty good....much better than in the past. I am very happy and content where I am in my life at this time and I think this is because I am becoming more content with who I am. I am not perfect. I don't have and can't do everything I would like. But I am content. I still dream about being better, doing better and maybe even having a few of the special things or going a few of the special places that are currently beyond by reach, but I am content with them being dreams for now and see all these things as exciting future possibilities. Whether or not they actually come into being is at the moment not important. That they are still dreams and possibilities is. I don't have to give up dreaming of the future to be content with the moment. That is a lesson I have learned so far this year.