March 18

For today's Forward Day by Day reading, Click Here.

Contentment is another underused but important tool in the bag. I try to use mine, but wish I would with more consistency. In my haste of looking forward and imagining how it will be "when" or how it would be "if," I sometimes forget to just bloom where I'm planted. We don't make ourselves extraordinary, that's God's job, right?

I love the reading today from Romans 9:

"But who indeed are you, a human being, to argue with God? Will what is molded say to the one who molds it, "Why have you made me like this?" Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one object for special use and another for ordinary use?"

So instead of wondering how great I'd be if I were a professional volunteer, or a brawny tennis player or a world renowned published writer or a style maven, or the most respected professional in my field, or a bad a** runner, or a mom with all the right moves...maybe I should just throw a little Contentment at myself and remember one important fact: I am NOT the potter.

In fact...I have some very saweet mom moves. I often remember what days I'm supposed to pack the lunchbox without being reminded! I run slow. So. What. I have a great job, it came to me like an angel blessing! I can still rock my 10-year-old Juicy sweatpants, yes indeedy. I AM a published writer, hello? Maybe not world renowned, but known by a few blog readers, right? I don't even want to play tennis that badly. I would go crazy, I think, volunteering my time any more than I do currently. So lucky me.

Perhaps Contentment looks like a wad of that ugly art room clay. That brown, heavy earthy-smelling cloddy stuff. It's a good reminder that Contentment is all we can use or be when the Potter is at the wheel. We have no say how we're going to be used, so why not just be happy in the circumstances we've been given?