Content

 

A few months ago, life weighed on me.  As I always do, I went out to see what I could read to help me get through the days.  Jerry was at annual training in Iowa.  I thought maybe a book about faith and an absent husband might help.  I picked a book called “Faith Deployed” by Jocelyn Green.  The book is for military wives.  The topics aren’t applying completely to me because it comes from the viewpoint of an active duty wife, but I have enjoyed the chapters I have read.  They are short.  I read one a week to think about throughout the days.

A couple weeks ago, the Bible reading at the top of chapter 8 resonated with me.  She cut parts of the verse out, so it began with “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances”.  I liked the idea of being content.  I need to be more content in all things.  With COVID, I have found myself not at all content.  I want to go to activities that have been canceled.  I want to travel.  I want my daughter socially healthy.  The list of my discontent can go on and on.  If I keep being restless, my life will become unbearable.  I had a lot to ponder for the week.

I went to Mass that Sunday, nothing out of the ordinary.  The Bible reading at Mass caused me to sit up straight.  The New Testament reading was the exact same as the one in the book.  Okay, God is telling me this is really important.  I love it when he makes his message abundantly clear.  I looked up the verses in a couple of different versions of the Bible.  The one at the bottom of the page comes from my Catholic New American Bible, just like the reading at church.

Yes, I need to be content.  I need to be resilient with all the things happening in the world and in my life.  In fifty-two years, God has taught me resiliency and so many other things.  I need to rely on all my life experiences.  I need to rely on the friends and family God sends to me who enhance my life, my attitude, like the Philippians helped Paul.  Most of all, I need to rely on God to get me through the good days and the bad.  He never has let me down and he never will.  My strength comes through the Lord.  This will keep me healthy and smiling.

 

“Not that I say this because of need, for I have learned, in whatever situation I find myself, to be self-sufficient.  I know indeed how to live in humble circumstances; I know also how to live with abundance.  In every circumstance and in all things I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry, of living in abundance and of being in need.  I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me.”  Philippians 4: 11-13