Hi. I’m Katie, and I have a dream world. It includes a husband to cook for, to help, and make happy. A family with a new name for me, and a life with my man, together serving the Lord as we fulfill His calling on our life. A man and his woman, in a dreamy little house, having dreamy little children. Working together, living together, and laughing and dancing in the living room, and sitting down to our own table. A fire in the fireplace on cozy nights at home, grand adventures as we travel with little ones in tow. This is my dream for the adventure of life.
This is what I think about. That picture, of a smiling, happy little family all my own, with pink haze around the edge framing the faces still blurry.
Blurry because it is not real- yet. It’s a dream. A perfect little dream world.
This who Katie really is: a single girl, working part time and going to school full time. An occasional weekend away with friends, coffee shop runs when I feel like it. A girl with time to travel the world and see new places, time to dabble in hobbies, and focus on ministries I’m passionate about. The world is open and before me and I can do anything and go anywhere. This is today. This is Katie. This is Katie’s rich and full and vibrant life- today.
Today is all I really know. I remember yesterdays, and imagine tomorrows, but today is reality. Today is what I can count on, and the life of today is what I must focus on. I can’t spend my time and energy in my dream world, living on pink clouds of what-ifs. Today is sitting at a desk and typing up attendance reports. Today is spending cozy evenings at home studying for a degree. Today is noticing the real people I really know and being present and active in their lives. Faces sharp and clear around me, not blurry from the unknown of dreams. Today is the real deal.
I’m working right now on becoming balanced and healthy in how I view where I am in life versus what I wish I was doing in life. I can’t say I’m there yet, but I am re-training my heart and mind to be content with today, with living right where I am. And living happily and creatively and vividly there. Not just slogging through, wishing and waiting to begin to live the day a golden band is slipped on my finger.
Its easy to think of those pink what-ifs, and to think that today is worthless because it doesn't include those dreams and ideas. But I'm finding this is false thinking. Where I am, my quiet life, is an adventure of life worth living. I have so many good things from God right here, right now. So many people to know and love, so much He would have me do. It's wrong of me to become unhappy because it doesn't match my fantasy dream world.
I am not giving up that dream of husband and family. Of picking up toys and socks, washing endless dishes, making soup in the crock-pot and the adventure of the grocery store being the highlight of the week. I'm not giving it up, but I'm putting a frame of "one day" around it, and standing back to put it into the perspective of today's bigger picture. The picture of where I really am, and the joys and happinesses I have right now, right here.
"I am still determined to be cheerful and to be happy in whatever situation I may be, for I have also learnt from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions and not upon our circumstances"- Martha Washington
"Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content." - Apostle Paul, Philippians 4:11
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