motif

There are times in my life when happiness seems to be elusive. Struggle as I might to rise above my circumstances, I feel as if it is something only reserved for those who have good jobs, a nice house, a healthy family, and "enough" money. Although at first you may deny that you struggle as I do, deep down I think we all honestly do struggle with the belief that happiness is something to be obtained when all the other things in our lives "fall into place". I know I am always embarrassed to admit this, but my emotions always reveal the truth as to what I believe.

It is my motif...a pattern in my thinking that I have prayerfully been addressing these last few years. (Perhaps you can relate?)

I spend so much time dreaming, sometimes chasing, after that elusive happiness, that I fail to recognize that it has always been near and available to me because it is not dependent upon my circumstances. It is dependent on my choice to find it in the things that circumstances cannot take from me: the love of my family, the laughter of my children, meaningful friendships, the gifts of creativity, the unconditional love of a God who values me as important and worthwhile.

Its just that sometimes I am caught in that warped pattern of thinking, too preoccupied with "life", to see what I have been missing.

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Week two of mindfulness comes from the weekly Picture Inspiration theme: motif. A motif is a distinctive and reoccurring form as in a design, as in a painting, or on wallpaper.

When I found this wall of happy faces over the weekend I was delighted to find a motif that spoke to me on many levels. It captured the basic idea of a motif (the reoccurring happy faces) but it also encapsulated a mental motif, a pattern of thinking that I know I am not alone in struggling with--this truth that happiness is something we often miss because we believe it is to be obtained through things or circumstances. Our repetitive mental motif (which breeds debilitating emotions) needs some serious divine intervention, and some personal effort, in choosing to renew our way of thinking if we are ever to experience the contentedness for which we long. I wanted to photograph someone walking by this wall o'happiness to illustrate this struggle.