My journey to contenment

I've mentioned that the study I'm doing is about contentment and my personal journey there. 

I had been doing pretty good.  I applied scripture to daily thoughts and my thought process seemed to change.  I was truly feeling better than content, but fully aware of the blessed life I was leading.....until late last week.  I'm still not sure why it hit me so hard and so fast when I had seemingly been doing so good, but it did.  I cried.  I cried because busy season for Matt is upon us once again and I've come to the realization that there is no such thing as a slow season.  There's normal and busy, never a lull, never slow.  Even though he's been in town, I've eaten most meals alone and even tucked Elyse in at night without him here.  It's the loneliness that's hardest and that makes the length of the day seem unbearable at times.  I cried because I had hoped to give my family dinner together at the table, every night if possible.  I dreamt of family game nights and story time with all of us.  In essence I think I was mourning the loss of those desires and the lack of control I had over "making" it happen for us.  No matter how bad I wanted it, I could not make it happen.

As negative as that sounds, it gets better.  I was not going to allow this kind of thinking and I was not going to let it steal the ability for this to be a house of peace, joy, gratitude and contentment.  Not on my watch.  I read, I prayed and I thought. 

Last night, while Elyse and I were eating dinner just the two of us, I realized what the problem was.  It was perspective and lack of intentionality.  Maybe the "norm" for many people is to sit down together for dinner every night but that doesn't mean it's wrong or tragic that it isn't our norm.  That was such a freeing thought.  It might not be us but it certainly isn't the end of the world that it isn't.  We have the resources and capabilities to work around that.  What we need to do is create and be intentional about our own family's norm and establish consistencies, even if they're unique to us alone.  One luxury Matt does have is that he can go into the office a little later so he is often around for a bit in the morning.  We many not be able to eat dinner together, but we can sure make the most of a purposeful family breakfast.  Maybe it will mean driving downtown to his office once a week to eat dinner with him there or meet for an early lunch together.  Maybe it means getting a second monitor for our office so he has the dual screen set up at home as well, so he could come home for dinner and bedtime and then work further from here if needed.  These things may sound simple and like common sense, things we should have been doing all along, and on the random occasion we have but we have not been intentional about it.  My journey to contement means specifically setting apart, with intention and consistency, time for our family to be together no matter how "normal" the approach outwardly appears. 

The realization of this brought a visible grin to my face and I thanked God for the clarity He granted me in a situation I had clouded with despair.