October 18th - Choose content or gift from God?

The story...

I don't remember feeling more content than I do today.  I'm loved and able to love others.  My physical needs are met.  There's nothing that I strongly desire that I believe would improve my condition.  Long-term hopes have been realized in unexpected good ways.  And, I don't seem to have expectations or opinions regarding other people that I desire to be fulfilled according to my will.  Yet, I'm trusting God for what's next.

Why am I in a preferable condition?  I'm retired and physically able to go and do the majority of things that I need or want to do. I have reasons to believe that there are enough resources to fulfill my needs in these last phases of life. I'm growing with friends who walk side-by-side with me.  And, I've a working faith that trusts God and His promises.  Fruit seems to be born in the lives that surround me - I believe in a Spiritual source and cause.

One day my life will be otherwise - two full-tear rotator cuff surgery was but one of them.  I've witnessed many-to-most people, in similar "content" situations, who later experienced periods of suffering that either built up their lives and faith or eroded them into a shadow of their former selves.  Some even gave up with a sense that life just ain't fair.

The only church in town will be a place where people will experience hope, friendships, love, suffering, and the presence of God within it all.  It's a place where you can honestly live out each stage of life.  It sure beats living in an imaginary world concocted to pretend that every thing is "groovy" when it ain't.  Why not find out about the good and lasting promises and presence of God?

Just for today...

"We may even think we have overcome resentment, self-righteousness and self-pity, but if they are still there inside us, they will in some mysterious way emanate from us and deny what we try to cover up by our play-acting."    Courage to Change (p. 292)

"Acting group; Good making - Looking right; Truly faking."
"Light exposes; Actors shriek - God disbands; Him they seek."   Am I a Poet?