Nature and I seem just as content with this day sans sunshine as we were yesterday with its abundance! Contentment is the gift we give ourselves in a world eager to try it and test it right out of us. It comes from a practice of making peace first within us so that no matter what happens or the conditions of any given day, we’re equipped to “handle” it before it handles us.

To have peace within means accepting that things aren’t always in our control, going our way or turning out as we had planned. Peacefulness is taking our hits and hurts in those moments we experience them, but not letting them take from us our hope for a time or especially forever. Learning how to make ourselves tranquil within enables us to vanquish the chaos and madness of the world; we’re able to silence the incessant noises of distraction and bother, as well as the ramblings of our own mind seeking control over what we cannot control or answers for questions which still remain. Contentment isn’t complacency, it isn’t ignorance or disregard. Contentment is learning and practicing the art of staying peacefully centered within, when the world is tilting or turning off balance externally.    

We need to practice this each and every day if we ever hope to be peaceful in life! Without contentment in spite of this or that, our peaceful minds and hearts can easily wear down, fatigue or give way, becoming just a part of this swirling eddy, that nasty fray, those turbulent tides and these negative winds of change. To be content with life as it occurs takes commitment and a concerted effort when life is pushing all of our buttons; but without that centered tether-hold on our soul, we risk losing who we are and what we’re yet to become! As Paul writes in the Bible, in Philippians 4: 11- 12 . . 11 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.