The Wrong Lens

I met a friend in church this morning who like me feels its hard to depart much from the mid line at this stage of life. Her discussion echoed my daily emotions. You think you might like to study a paper at university or find something thrilling to do to impress, or just follow a new interest but where is there the time to do it!

She has 5 children and we share the sense of loneliness there is at being at home churning over chores and missing relational experiences with burgeoning or teenage children. Children who need you less and less except to open your wallet or give them permission.

But as she commented we find it so difficult in our generation to be happy with our domestic role in comparison to our Mothers or Grandmothers. They didn't delight in their domesticity but they weren't given many other options so had lower expectations of their station and reveled in it. They enjoyed their home baking days and high teas and gossip sessions in the drawing room with their women friends.

I think I should start a midlife morning tea movement!

Our expectations are so high, the scope of opportunities so broad that we feel the need for two lives to do everything we'd like to do.

So the word contentment came to the surface again. It has been tumbling over and over in my thoughts in recent weeks. Can we be content without lessening our expectations?

Two things are coming to my realization. Only peace with God quietens a discontent heart and realigns our expectations to things that are more worthy of a life lived well.
Discontent is fast fed by advertising and trips to stores and comparing our situations with others.

My final word on this is about perfection. Perfection is such a disappointing dance partner, it waltzes the first lap with us and then changes partners for something more perfect on the second. When we view everything in life with a need for perfection, we will always be disappointed and discontent. We need to see beauty in the 'rough around the edges life' that we live and true wealth in our relationships with others.

I'm glad for the challenge to change the lens for myself,

Carolyn