Happiness.  We spend so much time in pursuit of it, longing for it.  We categorize aspects of our lives — some satisfied, while others are not so much.  We think thoughts of “when such and such happens” or “if I had this or that” then I will be happy. We compare, we despair. We create so many scenarios inside our heads about what life will be like when we get to our nirvana. 

I wish it weren’t so.  I don’t know why it is that we always feel there is a blank to fill in on our happiness chart.  As young moms, we think “I will be so glad when my baby sleeps through the night/is potty trained/can take her own bath…” When we’re older, we can’t help but long for the very smell of our babies heads, and yearn to hold them tiny just one more time.  We don’t think we will miss where we are in our quest to get to somewhere else.  But we do.  We always do. 

Why can’t we appreciate where we are when we’re in it?

I know people who are perfectly content in seeing their lives as “full.” They understand that we are always transitioning — relationships, roles, financial responsibilities… We are always moving through one phase or another. People come and go.  We change our addresses, our tax status, our jobs… We survive, we thrive.  It’s constant.

Time never stays still. 

So why do we wish it away?  We are conditioned by the world to think that what we have is not enough.  It temps us, convinces us that the secret key to Happily Ever After is just beyond our reach. We fall prey to gimmicks and mid-life crisis and impulses that have us drink from the cup of “You only live once!” We are roused to rebel, refocus, reframe our lives from a lens that substitutes substance for superficiality. 

How many people go to bed at night and wish they hadn’t succumbed to the false belief that happiness was somewhere else?

One of the hardest things I have had to learn in this season I am in, is to be alone.  It comes wrapped up in so many thoughts and images.  Life went from the hustle and bustle of a busy, thriving family, to one by one, my little birdies leaving the nest.  I’m still Mom.  I work and clean and shop and write. I have friends who grace my life with laughter and an occasional shoulder when I need one.  There is happiness in transition, it’s just different.   

The truth is, what a gift this time has been.  Not just for the obvious — Yes, I can cook or not. I can go to bed as early or as late as I like.  I can watch what I want on TV.  But being alone has allowed me to see and work through things that I never would have without this season. I have learned that happiness really isn’t found out there somewhere.   

God beckons us to be still so that He can fill in all our blanks. He grounds us, affirms us, loves us unconditionally and with a majesty of which there is no substitute.  When the world beckons our attention, distracts us, feeds us lies so that we covet things and people that are supposed to fill us up, He says to be filled in Him.

It’s not the car you drive, the salary you make, the relationship that fills a void, the vacation you want to take… It’s not a destination of “I’ll be happy when…”

Happiness just is.

It’s in the moments of now. It’s being grateful for what you already have.  It’s in the knowing that He is always with you. It’s in knowing that transitions are always before us.  It’s a train that will not stop.  All of it — All of it. The good, the bad, the ugly…. Has happiness within it.  Because it just is.  

The grass is never truly greener.  Ever.

Our ability to see what we already have as blessings, shifts everything.  No life — I don’t care what it looks like or what someone else seems to have — is perfect.  We are all flawed.  We are all broken in big and little ways.  

We can put away our pining for what we think we should have, and know that feast usually follows famine.  We can console ourselves with the understanding that perfection is a mirage.   

Stop running.  Take time to be still and let it sink in that happiness is in our doing the work, caring for our people, being accountable. It’s taking in stride that good times always follow bad, there are ups and there are downs, that relationships will wax and wane. We are full and sometimes we’re empty… We are always transitioning.

God is in all of it.  But sometimes we have to learn to see Him and trust Him and know Him.

That is when we find it.

Happiness is in trusting Him for what’s next, not for what’s out there. 

You have already arrived.  Go on… Take a look around.  Count your blessings even when it’s hard to see them.  They are there.

Be happy.