Last year my word was less.
Do less, have less, weigh less, spend less, talk less.
Yesterday, as I did my morning devotions and was reflecting over a few different conversations and thoughts I'd had the evening before, the word contentment kept quietly cycling through my mind over and over.
At one point I stopped, and wondered if contentment was perhaps the word God was giving me for 2018.
Holidays are hard for me, and I admit I'm a little bah humbug-ish during this time every year... I get so caught up in all I have to do for everyone else and feel all woe-is-me for what everyone isn't doing for me. I thought about a little instagram meme that had caught my attention as well "There are people who would love to have your bad days." I had hit the little heart button, and that little phrase and reality kept coming back to me all day.
Reality check. Wake up call. Stop feeling so darn sorry for yourself and start being joyful in all you have. Stop focusing on all the things you have to do and start focusing on all the things you get to do, the time you get to spend with your family, the gifts and love you get to shower on those you love and adore... Christmas isn't all about me. Christmas is about the birth of the Christ child long ago, in a land far away, in a dirty barn stall. Christmas is about the gift given to us in the form of an infant who would grow, and teach, and model, and ultimately die a painful death on our behalf to save us from our sin and stain, and allow us the gift of grace, forgiveness, and eternal salvation.
Yea, and I'm sitting here worried about gifts, and decorations, and food, and credit card bills. Thanks satan, but sorry, not today.
As I thought over my theme and word for 2017, I started weighing in on how the year is ending. I did a good job doing less this year. I did an ok job purging and having less. I managed to continue my health and wellness and weighing less. I'm not quite sure how I did on the talking less... but on the spending less... well, that one I have not quite fully come to grips with yet.
I also couldn't help but smile, because really, contentment (at least for me) largely plays a part in the whole avenue of less. I'm quite certain that my 2017's "less" was the beginning legwork for what I'm going to need to be tackling in 2018 in the area of contentment.
I have always struggled with contentment. I have always been one who has wanted more, bigger, greater, nicer, newer... I have always been one who wants what I want, when I want it, how I want it. I have always been one who strives for perfection and isn't happy until I reach it ... which is never, because we all know perfection is ultimately unattainable here on earth.
I'm one of those go big or go home people. One of those you either love me or you hate me, and you never quite know what to do with me or expect from me.
And all of my life I have never felt enough.
I have always battled not being enough, not having enough, and it's often left me on this hamster wheel of crazed overachievement expectations and unattainable realities. It's left me fallen short and harder on myself (and others) than feasibly necessary. It's a hard flux to live within quite honestly.
I need to learn to accept myself the way that I am. I need to learn to accept my life the way that it has been granted to me. I need to learn to accept where I am and what I am doing as what God has in His plans for me. I need to stop being so hard on myself, and I need to stop being so hard on everyone around me.
I wonder why it is so hard for us to simply just be enough? To just be fully present in the moment, fully accepting in the reality, fully ok with whatever the circumstances and outcome? Why are we so hard wired for hard things? Why is our first response to over dramatize and turn it all inward?
I know I can't be alone in this inner daily battle. I'm betting that on some level, nearly everyone struggles at least a little with all this. There has to be others out there that as also wanting to stop and smell the roses ... but not just some of the roses, stopping life entirely for just a few moments on occasion to smell all of the roses. I long and ache to find true happiness from within, from slowing down, from being ok with everything life is currently handing me... I long to stop trying to become enough through the endless doing of more and more and more in an attempt to be, and do, and become more and more and more.
Embrace less to be enough. Embrace less to have enough.
Contentment ... my word ... my theme ... my hope for 2018. I am excited to see what God all has in store for me over the next twelve and a half months. How about I promise to keep you posted on that?! [wink]
con·tent·ment
noun a state of happiness and satisfaction.
synonyms: contentedness, content, satisfaction, gratification, fulfillment, happiness, pleasure, cheerfulness;
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