Content

Ph 4:11... for I have learned whatever state I am in to be content.

I don't know about you but this verse has always challenged me. Growing up I aspired to believe it and live it, but I had BIG dreams, BIG plans, BIG ideas and there wasn't much room for contentment. I was happy, I was loved, but I just could not grasp what it meant to be content. In my mind content = stagnant. If I was not able to accomplish all my BIG-ness then somehow that meant my life would be small and meaningless and I could not be content with this. How could I be content with a "normal" every-day kind of life? Shouldn't I be out changing the world, making a difference in a splashy way? To me contentment would mean failure and that I had given up on BIG. Granted, when Paul wrote this verse he was speaking of being content in actual hardships and persecution, which is much more admirable than me worrying about being content in the midst of my first world problems. Obviously I lacked a true appreciation for what Paul was talking about with my shallow definition of the word.

Fast forward to present day. After walking away from my former life which I considered an adult or grown-up lifestyle including marriage, career and my own home I found myself right back where I was twelve years before. I was living back at home with my parents, still not having a clue what I wanted to be when I grew up and also single again. It felt like a huge slide backwards, like I severely regressed and just threw away 12 years of my life. It did not matter that I was following God, being as obedient to His leading as I knew how. I knew beyond a doubt that I was in His plan for me, yet still I have struggled and fought it every step of the way. It is now three years that I have been home living with my parents, working on recovering from all the effects of an unhealthy marriage. I will be 33 this year, not growing younger and I am still searching for my purpose or calling in life. Three years and I am still not in a position to be on my own. God has called me to this place for this time. I know this, but it has been a mighty battle for me to come to an acceptance of this.

I have wrestled with the expectations I have for myself. I have wrestled with the cultural and societal expectations that assume an adult woman would be living on her own, working her way up the ladder of career. I have wrestled with the self-inflicted shame of feeling like I have fallen short of these expectations, of the failure of my previous life, of my expectations of what my life would like at this point. I have struggled with answering the inevitable questions about my current lifestyle. I have wanted to run from this place God has called me to. I have wanted to do anything to escape. I have hidden myself away from those who love and support me, from myself and from God. But I kept hearing God say, "stay." Stay. Do not seek out something different or supposedly "better." Stay. It has been a very hard lesson for me to learn. But in the process of choosing to stay I have also learned to be content. I am learning to trust God, really trust Him. I believe that this is temporary and that He has something planned for my future that is bigger and better than anything my puny imagination could envision. I am learning to be thankful for the special things about this current chapter of my life. I look for the love and the blessings and they are numerous. And because I am learning to be grateful, because I am learning to trust I have surprised myself by learning to be content as well. I find myself resting in the hope of His promise. There is much contentment in knowing He is in control, that He loves me and has an amazing purpose being developed in me. Although I still have long way to go before I can be content in the kind of circumstances Paul describes, God has given me a good start.

Silent Killer

There are scars all over my heart. Healed marks where I've sliced and gouged and scraped my soul with self-recriminations, shame and guilt. These are the price I pay for my inevitable failures when chasing perfection. In my head I know that this quest is impossible, but my heart demands that I try. It's not enough to do my best, to live with integrity. I'm not enough unless I'm perfect. Any flaw or falling short of the standard must be punished. Atonement has to be made for imperfection. And so I bleed repentance and sorrow. I inflict the pain of it on my soul as penance, while perfection slowly suffocates the life out of my spirit. Perfection is a silent killer.

But perfection is also a liar. It screams that the burden of being perfect is all up to me. It whispers that there must be something wrong with me if I fail to measure up. It's very definition flickers in shadows. What is perfection. How is it determined?

But when I look to the source of Truth I realize perfection was never demanded of me. I was called to live a righteous life which is very different from living a perfect one. Perfection is rigid, harsh, unrelenting and unforgiving. But living a righteous life means living by grace and grace is not a taskmaster. Grace does the work of righteous and holy living then gives me the credit. Grace is unfallible, inexhaustible and motivated by love. If perfection is a silent killer, then righteousness is grace made alive in me. So, I am giving up on chasing perfection and it's impossible standard. I'm ready to let grace work in me.