Periwinkle

(No that is not my daughter, but a lovely girl in Madagascar, holding a Periwinkle, which is harvested for pharmaceutical companies.)

Yesterday I mentioned how we can learn to be content in all circumstances. And this morning, that thought came back to me, but in a different way...

Not just being content in our current season of life...whether we face challenges (or good times).... but also being content in the circumstance of the moment.

Driving to work, preparing breakfast for kids, coming home and making dinner, all those little snippets of moments and some circumstances that feel mundane or even a bother...we can find a moment of contentment and even beauty in it.

First, in the thought that this is life, and this too is important. Taking care of the living of life in the details. Also from the aspect of serving my family through these snippets. Doing it with a joyful heart, since so much of our life is lived out in these details, think how much more joyful life would be overall if we find contentment in the little bits and pieces. Often I will find my self with an "oh-bother-I-need-to-do-this or take-care-of-that" attitude.

I am not saying these tasks will bring you a fountain of joy (perhaps they could), but you can be content in doing them, with a smile on your heart that your are doing them for your family, or your livelihood.

The last aspect, that can bring contentment in the snippets, is along the line of what Brother Lawrence wrote in Practicing the Presence of God (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Lawrence).... that you can be in constant communion with God, in whatever you are doing, and in that brings contentment into the mundane as well.

"Nor is it needful that we should have great things to do. . . We can do little things for God; I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of him, and that done, if there is nothing else to call me, I prostrate myself in worship before him, who has given me grace to work; afterwards I rise happier than a king. It is enough for me to pick up but a straw from the ground for the love of God."

So finding contentment in our circumstances, whether the seasons and aspects of our life, or the details and tasks, are like finding the flower in each moment. I don't know why the word Periwinkle came to my mind when I thought of this, but looking it up, I found it that it is not only a pretty, attractive flower, but it is also medicinal used for diabetes, and cerebrovascular conditions like dementia.

I think, perhaps, like the Periwinkle, these little moments and circumstances of our lives can be far more than a snippet task, but a way to worship God and raise the overall quality of our lives with His contentment.