The Beginning...

“We must begin with thanksgiving for everything. The beginning of joy is to be content with your situation.”
St. Ambrose of Optina

Life is interesting. Every time I come to the end of something, I see there is also a beginning just ahead of me. I don't just refer to things that actually end end, graduations and stuff like that, but each chapter of my life and even realizations and understandings have an ending...An ending that is always followed by a beginning. The remarkable thing is that when I am content with how something has ended, the transition into the next beginning is so much smoother.

Last year, I kicked and screamed and fought and cried at the ending of something. To be honest, two somethings. I panicked. I lost control. I totally and completely lost "it," whatever "it" is on more than one occasion. I could not find it in me to rest and be content. The fact that this was a HUGE ending marked by a lot of pain, notwithstanding.

Over time, however, I've found myself becoming content with my situation. First off, I calmed down. I stopped panicking every time I looked at my situation. Always a good thing. No one can think properly while caught in a blind panic.

As calm began to descend I began to actually see how God cares and is caring for me. As I became aware of and thankful for His love and His care, contentment with my situation began to grow. And as I've allowed contentment to permeate my life, I've found sparks of joy, and even outright happiness, flaring into flame. The "happiness" goes away--it is impossible to retain intensity--and sometimes I have a bad day or three or seven, but the sparks of joy remain.

I've also noticed that the bad days are those days when I allow myself to forget His care and I choose to become ungrateful and discontented. Joy not only does not but cannot exist where discontent and ungratefulness rule.

So...Can I maintain this? Oh my goodness, I wish! I know he was talking about something else entirely but to quote St Paul:

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Romans 7:15-25

The key is remembering to be thankful, remembering that nothing I do or have done or can do or will do will ever compare to Who He is and His love for me. Remembering that and being thankful for that is the path to contentment and contentment is the beginning to the sparks of joy flaring into flames of love in my life.