In the early hours of my day, I spend in the silence of my home sipping on my salty warm water while I sit with God, then I shift to coffee and work… attempting to get as much done as I can before the girls wake.
I find joy in my morning routine. Mornings are full of promise and I love the fresh start each dawn brings.
I find that when I am in my own bubble I am as content as can be. But as soon as I open the door to the world, suddenly discontentment like a thief in the night swoops in to make me feel inadequate.
I tried to put my finger on the culprit, and it wasn’t too hard to nail down. Social media. Expectations. Culture. As great as it can be to have that connection to the digital world…it can steal a lot of joy.
I also found that this discontentment came from 36 years of the world telling me what life was supposed to be like. It has only been in the last two years that I have been able to discern from the Bible that what the world says, is not where I need to rest my trust in.
For this year, my word to wrap my goals, dreams, mindset around is CONTENTMENT.
For so long, I would pray for something different.
Lately this prayer was for land. Every night I would pray these prayers, hoping when I woke that I would be a little closer to God answering my prayers.
I kept thinking moving to a property with acreage would solve all my problems and provide the perfect canvas for my new dreams and passion in life.
One day my husband and I sat down and had a long conversation about what moving would look like and if it really would be the best thing for our family. I realized it wasn't the right timing, it was not what God wanted at this point for our family.
As the words "not the right time" poured out of my realist husband's mouth, the words felt like pin needles popping all of my dreams.
My once ever present vision in my head of our homestead began to fade into the distance.
And as I shared before, that is when I truly felt the Holy Spirit stir in me, “Be content where you are.”
Without another thought toward the negative, woe is me, my dreams will never come true, empty, disappointed attitude. I hopped right over to how can I be content here?
Let's create our own homestead here. Starting with a garden, then a compost and raising chickens here.
Thankfully hubs was on board and off my brain went with planning.
It is so easy today to let the TV commercials, pop culture, IG squares, society, mainstream drool convince you that you are not enough. That you don’t have enough shoes, enough house, enough cute sweaters, enough leggings, enough toys for your kids, enough land for a homestead, enough money in your bank account, enough followers, enough say at your job, enough friends… yikes,
Listen friends, God never said we needed ANY of those things. He actually said to not become part of this world. Which can be really tough with all the propaganda and distractions out there. This all created the perfect storm for me and is what inspired us to live differently. I have listed our TV for sale and we closed our Instagram accounts.
The world tries to trick us into thinking that it can make us happy, fulfilled, satisfied, content…but the truth is it can’t. Only God can give us that resounding joy, unexplainable peace, blanketing us with freedom that feels impossible in this broken world of let downs.
I firmly believe when we do shift our focus to being content where we are, that God will start to open doors to new opportunity. But before that can happen, gratitude must take place. We have to be thankful for what we have, where we are no matter how dismal or difficult or drab it seems.
As you shimmy into this new year that the world has been counting down to since March, don’t let our culture steal your joy.
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