No doubt about it. Life is definitely peculiar. Just when I thought I had everything figured out, it changes. Current events not even in the picture, I am referring to the desires of childhood.
I wanted 1 husband, children (lots of them), a white house with a black roof and a white picket fence around it and several pets in the yard. I suppose it was the dream of an apartment dwelling child sharing her room with her sibling and a half-sibling at that. At that time, the age of 6, he was my brother and I accepted it at face value. To this day, he is still my brother.
Then, life happened. My parents all divorced again and remarried. New sisters were born and my father gathered 6 new step-brothers and sisters into my life. I lived in more apartments than houses and none of them had a white picket fence. I grew up and found out the dream I had didn't just happen. You had to have the skill sets to make it happen. You have to know what it takes to make it happen.
Living the dream is only possible if you know how to work to get it. Take the simple idea of 1 husband. You have to first know that it is possible to do that. When it was the norm to have one husband and not fool around on them, most women knew what they had to do to make that happen. You didn't just "up and leave" when it didn't "feel good" anymore. You stuck it out and you didn't run home or run off to some gym or bar to work out your frustrations and find a new "interest" or "feel good." That kind of love that lasts takes work and it isn't being taught that way anymore. And that is a shame.
I live in a small yellow house with a green roof and the fence is in the backyard and contains dogs and grapevines. I had one child who is grown, married and trying to live out his own childhood dreams. And that part of my dream as well turned out different. I did not raise my son. I had an influence on his life, but was not allowed to be there with him when he needed me and I needed to nurture him. That is my regret in life. That is the part of my dream that I so wanted to come true, but I didn't know how to do it. His father and I divorced. Why? Best reason I can come up with is this. Each of us in our own special way was a total butt hole. Neither of us knew how to make it work and only tried sporadically with limited skill to do so. Neither of us was willing to put down the baggage we brought in to the marriage and simply burn it. We kept our baggage and cherished it and lost sight of what was important.
It took many years and many heartaches to finally figure out how it all is supposed to work, and it IS work. It is filled with compromise. One of you has to compromise first so it may as well be you. Get that first time out of the way. It gets easier after that. One thing you must remember about compromise is that you NEVER sell out your ethics or moral principles to do so. Let GOD guide your compromises so you do not sell something that doesn't belong to you.
My life is simple. I worship GOD ALMIGHTY. YESHUA is my Savior. The rest is just living. My husband and I have similar views on politics and religious topics. We occasionally disagree, which is good because if we both had identical views on everything, one of us would be unnecessary. I have my flower garden, I mow grass, take care of 6 dogs, 2 cats and feed the birds. He has his acres of gardens that he takes joy in. He likes his grapevines and worm trees (don't ask). He likes fishing and hunting. That's not for me. We were content. We were literally fat and happy.
Our new friends were the cardiologists and all the nurses and clerks at the office. So, it finally occurred to us that maybe that was not the thing to be. We had to become discontented with our life. We had to change. We had to get out of our comfort zone and do things differently.
In achieving contentment, which I am quite sure was never in either of our dreams as children, we achieved a negative lifestyle. Now we are working hard to overcome in a short period of time what has taken 20 years to accomplish.
We got some new friends - determination and ambition. We are doing things that promote good health and making a concerted effort to do some sort of exercise every day. Our bodies are the temple that the HOLY SPIRIT lives in and we are doing quite a bit of home maintenance.
Shalom! Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem!