In my younger years I thought every journey must have a destination. If you study hard, you earn good grades. If you put your best foot forward, you attract incredible friends. If you think about the traits you desire in a spouse, you will find the ideal life partner. If you read all the great parenting blogs, you will raise happy, productive children. If you go to all of your doctor appointments, you will remain healthy. As I grow older, I realize that sometimes… you can study really hard and still not do as well as you hoped. You can be warm and loving and sometimes still develop a less than stellar friendship. You can have a laundry list of positive spousal traits and still not have a perfect marriage. You may read every parenting blog under the sun and still have a child who is unhappy or not realizing the potential God breathed into them. And yes, you can go to all of your doctors appointments and be vigilant about preventing disease and still become ill.
The secret of contentment in the midst of the journey actually does not lie within the destination. The secret of contentment, the pure unadulterated joy lies in the sometimes hard-fought acceptance of the mundane, the mediocre, the everyday normal. When you can accept your new normal- whatever that looks like- you find yourself able to move forward. Your spirit ceases to look back wistfully at the shadows of your old life. Instead, your soul pushes you forward to see a fresh new canvas- with some subtractions and some additions to your life.
After you accept the colors and hues of your new life, you must press on and adapt. Just as the chameleon’s color changes to suit her environment, you must change your perspective- the way you see those new colors and what you choose to do with them.
Accept. Adapt. And then what? I would say Depend. Depend on the strength of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to carry you through when you’re not sure you can accept or you’re uncertain of how to adapt. And then my friend you will come to the ultimate realization- the epiphany that the JOY is never, ever in the destination. It is always found in the journey.