I looked for happiness everywhere but my happiness is right here opening my windows, making my bed, sweeping the floor, baking my bread.

I was a teacher for almost twenty five years.  Every summer holiday I would walk and walk and walk and I would try to think of something ... think of a way ... to escape this bullet train.  For twenty five years there was no escape.  Within the first week of the new school year I was wedged in and there was no escape!

 I dreaded that feeling of not being in control, of just getting up in the morning, having a shower, getting dressed, saying goodbye to my husband and getting in my little grey Suzuki to go to school.  I would normally arrive at school dreadfully early.  Sometimes I have had to unlock the school gate.  I did that for the entire time I was teaching simply to have time to prepare for the day ahead and also to pray.  I always felt that I can not stand a minute in this profession without prayer and that the most important thing I did on any given day was to pray.

After I retired I started doing relief teaching. I was on that bullet train once more! My brain so wired for the school day that I could not do anything else.  I simply did not know how to be at home.  I did not know how to stay at home and be happy.  I had to be out there!

After one specific traumatic day in a local school while driving home, I suddenly, remembered a book that I have read many years ago.  I remembered the feeling when first I picked up that book. It felt different  ... good ... it felt wholesome and it felt somehow like hope would feel.  This book was "Down to Earth" by Rhonda Hetzel.  I loved this book.  I loved how she said:  " I looked for happiness everywhere but then one day I realised that my happiness was right in front of me ... here in my own home. Everything I loved was right here, my lovely bed, my wonderful husband, my beautiful garden, my little stream with the ducks and my roses.

I know how to live my life now.  I live my life with purpose, with meaning and  choose simplicity over complication every single day.  I get up early.  I read my Bible and spend time in prayer.  I open the windows, make my bed and bake bread.  I deliberately avoid flash and big talk as well as people with this mindset. I  treasure silence in order to hear the voice of God: " This is the way ... walk in it".  Isaiah 31 verse 21