Now is the Winter of Our Discontent

Wow its been a while since I blogged huh. Betcha thought I forgot about my blog again. I didn't. I have just been really tired. Abnormally tired and I've been having some joint pain in my hands and pain in my feet and back. The hypochondriac in me thinks I have lupus. The rational person in me says that I need to get more sleep, eat better, take my vitamins and start exercising. Oh and knock off all the coffee. I personally believe that a lot of our ailments can be solved by diet. Not everything of course, but a lot of things can. If we don't take care of ourselves and that includes eating well, our body's don't function right. If you eat crap, you feel like crap. And well...I've been eating a lot of crap lately to include at least 3 (yep 3) cups of coffee a day. So what does all this have to do with the "winter of my discontent"? Not a whole heck of a lot but I just thought I would share.

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Dr Mike continued his financial series today. Today's topic was contentment. How to find contentment. To seek our contentment in not what our circumstances are but by finding divine joy in God. In other words not letting your circumstances determine your outlook. But by seeking contentment in what you have by focusing on the good things of God.

Why does every sermon convict me so?

This really got me thinking today about my own personal contentment. I am not content. I have not been for a while. But why am I not content? I am dissatisfied with my marriage. I have too much clutter choking the daylights out of me. I have two children who though they love me and I love them drive me insane. I am homesick and I am tired of struggling financially. If you were any ordinary person and just saw things in the natural, you probably wouldn't be too content either. But I don't want to be an ordinary person. I want to be a person that can be identified as a Christian from a mile away. I want to have Gods divine joy and contentment. I want to have that quiet strength that you see in true Christians. I want those around me to be affected by the spirit of God through me. But by being so dissatisfied and stressed out all the time, I'm not modeling that to the world. The bible says that you shall know a tree by its fruit and well, my fruit hasn't been juicy and ripe for some time.

But I think that I become so overwhelmed with the day to day that I forget to look at things in the spirit. I forget to try to see things through Gods eyes. Yes my children irritate me but I have children. Yes my house is cluttered but I have a house. Yes I'm homesick but there are many out there who don't have families to go home to. Yes we struggle with finances but we have enough food in our home when others don't. There is always good in a situation. Though we maybe so overwhelmed with the bad that we don't see it.

Being content is not something that's easy but it's something that I need to strive for. It's something I need to work on. One thing that I do have control over is all the clutter in my home. If I can get ride of say 75% of it and live with less stuff then I do believe that I can truly be happier and more relaxed. Chaos is a deal breaker for me. I don't like chaos but my home seems to be filled with it. I know that I can be happy with less. I know my girls can be happy with less. Now, Jeff I don't know if he can be happy with less. He seems to always want more. He keeps talking about buying an LCD TV and the kind of car he wants to have oh and don't forget he "needs" The Wrath of the Lich King (which is sold out everywhere). I don't really think about stuff like that right now. We are managing with what we have and we would manage with 50% less.

I need to get started with the first step to my contentment. Decluttering my home! I pray that God gives me the energy to tackle such a monumental feet. The clutter is overwhelming and that's why I haven't even attempted it until now. But Kylie's birthday is 3 weeks away and Christmas is just around the corner. Things need to get out of my house before I'm drowning in even more clutter than before!