Content

It’s snowing right now.  Big, beautiful, white, fluffy flakes cover the ground in quickly growing quantities.  Darkness has fallen.  The wind is howling outside and the chimes that hang off our deck are singing a happy little tune.  The inside of the house is silent.  The kids have escaped their beds for the final time and there is not a sound from their rooms.  The only sound is the clicking on and off the the heater. 

I walked today.  I really, really, walked.  I’m not talking about the shuffle-shuffle-crutch, shuffle-shuffle-crutch kind of walk.  I’m talking the throw-the-crutches-in-the-trash-it’s-time-to-move-on kind of walk.  Oh, yeah, I’m already dreaming. . .

. . . but there is so much more.

The journey of this surgery. . . the journey of this year has taught me much about being content.  A client said to me today, “I just need to learn to be content right here.”  She’s right. 

A year ago being content meant that I got my daily run in and everything could be placed nice and neat in a box at the close of every day.  Everything had its place. . . every question had its answer.  I was in control.  Today, content means something very different.  It has nothing to do with my situation and everything to do with my perspective. 

Perspective is a funny thing.  It is simply changing your vantage point.  From one angle something can look like only a mess to be cleaned up, but from another it can be seen as a piece of art that will make you smile.

(It’s true, I can find meaning in everything. . . even Play-doh.)

When I decided to have this surgery, my only purpose was to run again.  Hurry up, get it done, let me lace up my shoes again.  The view from four weeks post-surgery looks very different.  I am being refined.  Now, I see that I needed this.  I needed to see that life is more than running and I am more than a runner.  I needed to know that the fate of every day does not  rest on whether I run or don’t run.  I needed to recognize that life is about so much more. I needed to learn to be content. . . in every situation. 

This refining isn’t just for me, though.  I have four little eyes that are watching me and looking to me as they learn how to navigate their way through this world.  I owe it to them to ride the waves of these challenges and hope that when their challenges come, they will know, no matter the circumstances,  they will be okay.

Tonight as the kids and I huddled around a game on the floor, I felt that familiar pang of love that sparks my heart when I slow down enough to feel it.  Usually, it is in the simple moments when I watch how their hands move or listen to the way they laugh and compete with their silly faces that realize it. . .

I realize that even though everything isn’t tucked neatly in a box and I continue to have endless unanswered questions and I am so far from being in control. . .

I am content.