Contentment

Do you have those moments?

Do you have those moments when you know that life is just as good as it gets?

I had one of those moments today while watching two little girls share a cupcake on my front porch.

The moments where I feel the most contentment are glimpses of something so pure that I am aware of a feeling of peace deep inside of myself and with life in general.

These moments may be at the time of a celebration. A recent moment I remember was on the day my daughter graduated with her master's degree. I looked down at her newborn son asleep on my lap, with a soft pale baby blue blanket snuggled around him, and I knew that this was absolutely one of those "life just doesn't get any better than this" moments.

More often I find that these special moments just appear at the most surprising times, not necessarily at a celebration or holiday. The one today with the cupcake was a moment of pure sweetness. There was only one cupcake and it needed to be shared. Breaking it apart caused it to crumble in my hands as two little girls each excitedly grabbed parts of chocolate cake with white icing and of course sprinkles. I licked icing from my fingers and my soul smiled. The moment came and went quickly, but it was worth a million dollars.

Other times I have declared under my breath, "life just doesn't get any better than this" when my world is chaotic and spinning with lots of activity. A time when the family was gathered together recently following a busy day, with out-of-town relatives joining the local group was just such a time. That special moment came when my youngest daughter sat down on her chair and it collapsed beneath her. The room was soon filled with laughter. Now as I try to explain to you why this moment is one that touched my soul, you would have to know how much each family member means to me, what the coming together meant to my heart, how we love to tease each other and laugh--you would have to know that and so much more to understand that life was as good as it gets at that very moment.

Do you have any "good as it gets" moments in your life? Are you blessed to have those little reminders of how precious life is? Does the gift of contentment appear most unexpectedly during those times when your heart feels a special rush; when you know that you want to keep going on to see what comes next in life; when your soul smiles joyfully while you silently say to yourself, "life just doesn't get any better that this!"

If so, you are blessed. I know for certain that I am. Even as I write tonight I realize that it is with some difficulty I try to recall the details of so many of those past moments, and I believe that must be why they are so special when they come and steal softly across my heart and mind and then disappear from my memory. As I then find that place of contentment inside of me where all the moments rest forever, there is no need to be able to recall them all. The moments come and go just like a butterfly landing on a flower petal--beautiful, almost breathless to behold, but soon gone, leaving a bit of heaven in their wake.

There we were last weekend...four sixty-some-year old-women, all with painted toenails, stretching our toes out from the water in the hot tub....giggling like we were twelve-year-olds, at the sight of forty brightly painted toenails lined up in a row. Yep, that was one of those moments when I cherished the gift of knowing that life just doesn't get any better than this.