Learning to be content

“We’ve all started a sentence with the phrase “Won’t it be great when…” (I go to college, fall in love, have kids, etc.). Similarly, we often hear older people start sentences with this phrase “Wasn’t it great when…”

But think about how seldom you hear anyone say, “Isn’t this great, right now?”

With my 4th open heart surgery just under a month away, time seems like it couldn't go slow enough. I am soaking up everything, and I am trying to spend as much time with family as possible. I will be in the hospital for at least a week and then it will take about 2 months to recover and then over 2 months of physical therapy. So for a while, there will be a lot of things I can't do until I recover.

For the majority of my life, I have wanted things to go by faster. I wanted to be in high school, and then I just wanted graduation to be here. Then, I want to get to college and live on my own. Then, I was ready for college to be over. I wanted to be engaged, and then I just was ready to be married. And I can even look at this on a smaller scale. For example, every week I seem to be ready for the weekend. I will just tell myself every weekday, I just can't wait until Friday. Or "If I can just get to Friday....." It has seemed like every season of my life I just couldn't wait for the next thing to come. I couldn't even fully enjoy and embrace the current season of my life for wanting the next one to be here.

As I have talked about before, planning our wedding was STRESSFUL. There were so many unknowns thrown at us that I lost count. And you know what I kept saying? I can't wait for this to be over and just be married. You can ask anybody close to me and they would probably tell you they heard me say that at least 10 times. I was over it. And I definitely do not miss the crazy amounts of stress that came along with planning our wedding, but I do wish I would have taken the time to slow down a little and be more grateful for that time in my life. But, at the moment I just wanted it to be over. At the wedding, I had a wake-up call about how much I rushed things and it has changed my perspective. I had just walked down the aisle and our preacher was talking about Drew and me and what marriage was intended to be, etc. Just typical wedding stuff. It was probably all of 5 minutes if that. I honestly had no concept of time that day. But, as I was standing up there, I was thinking that I couldn't wait for this part to just be over. I was thinking like "come on, let's get to the vows". I was rushing that. I was not even being grateful for that moment, but I was ready for the next part of the ceremony to be here. Then, I thought to myself that I had to stop. I told myself this is a once in a lifetime day, and a day that I had been waiting on for so long. I made it a point for the rest of the day to just slow down and soak in the day, and before I knew it the whole day was over.

When we got back from the honeymoon I spent time with the Lord trying to figure out how I could change this. And how I could find a balance of being excited about the future while also being content in the present. Because all of the moments I talked about that I rushed were things I should be excited for. The Lord gives us things to be excited about, and there is nothing wrong with being excited about them. I found that in my life, I was letting the excitement overpower the joys of the current moments. I was spending so much of my time and energy waiting for the future that I was not appreciating the little moments I would never get again. I was so ready to get married and focused on the wedding that I wasn't fully appreciating still being in college and being surrounded by all of my friends. And these were times I would never be able to have again. I wasn't fully appreciating my time at UGA. And there was a time prior that I asked the Lord for me to be accepted into the school. So I asked the Lord to help me to learn the balance of both of those things.

As I was working through some of this, I remembered a bible study that I taught about contentment, because a lot of my friends were also struggling with finding contentment in the present. Even though I taught this lesson, I still wasn't living it out like I wished I could. I started the bible study off with the definition of contentment which is -

The state of being mentally or emotionally satisfied with things as they are.

It is finding joy in what we already have in our lives, feeling or showing satisfaction with our possessions, status, or situation. It’s being happy without trying to find fulfillment in acquiring more material possessions. This is tough and definitely something I have struggled with. We went on to talk about why it was so difficult to be content. I learned that part of the problem is that happiness isn’t just one thing. And that it is hard to be fully satisfied with what I have when I am constantly comparing myself to others. And the last thing is that we always tend to want what we don’t have-- what we don’t have seems way better than what we have now. It feels like that in my life I think I will be fully happy and fully satisfied with my life when __________ happens. But then, that comes around and I am not completely satisfied and then I start wishing for the next things in my life. And it is just a never-ending cycle. I have to learn how to be content in the present. I have to stop letting my joy in life rely on circumstances and possessions. Being fully satisfied can only come from Jesus. I must continuously remind myself of the promises from the Lord. I know the Lord will never leave me or forsake me (Hebrews 13:5-6). I know that the Lord has great plans for me, and the plans are not to harm me but to give me hope & a future (Jeremiah 29:11). And I know that God loves me (Romans 5:8). Just these things right here are enough to celebrate and be joyful today.

A few years ago I heard the quote "The days are long, but the years are short" and I did not understand what that meant at all. But recently that quote has been on my mind and it could not be more true. When you're in the waiting periods of something you're excited for, the days just seem to go so slow. Then one day it's years later and you've gone through 4 or 5 seasons of new and exciting moments. With all of this being said, I have found that true contentment can only come from Jesus. There will always be something to be excited about or something to mourn. There will always be someone who has something you wish you did or is doing something you wish could do. The grass will always seem greener. But, what if instead of wanting what we don't have we started trying to be fully content with what we do have. Ask the Lord to help you with this and spend time with Him. We can't do this on our own.

So today instead of focusing on the weekend or something coming up in your life, try to slow down and focus on today. Be appreciative of what the Lord has given you TODAY. If you are finding it hard to find just a few things to be grateful for, just try making a list. And start with little things. Live in the moment today, because all of the things we are anticipating will get here. And they will get here at the same time they are supposed to, whether we spend all of our current energy on them or not.

Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory

- Dr. Seuss

xoxo,

Madison