My brother thinks I am secretly a part-time social event
planner as I work my day job – and maybe that carries more truth to it than I
tend to give credit. When my mind wanders, it thinks about the next steps –
starting with how to make a weekend beach day more epic, or my next reason to
throw a party, or that unexplored happy hour or hole-in-the-wall dinner date destination…
it eventually moves onto my career goals and family goals, my dream home and
dream vacation, my hopes with how to love Ben better and what I can do today to
make that happen. The future doesn’t bring hesitancy or discouragement, it
brings excitement and a deeply lodged feeling of anticipation for all that is
to come.
My only fear is that the future takes me away from the
present.
Sharing life with friends here in San Diego is one of the
greatest gifts, and lately I’ve noticed the conversation starters have turned
to new topics. Besides the oldies but goodies – the best cocktail in town or
hikes around SD or latest fashion trend, we talk about something I have never
considered until recently… real estate. It’s no secret that buying a home here
in SD is unchartered territory amongst my friends – the housing market seems to
be an untapped entity reserved only for the elite… yet it simultaneously seems
like the most natural next step in most of our lives. It’s as though we cannot
suppress the human inclination to long for whatever is Next… except for when
that next thing happens to be of celebrity-status and completely unattainable
in this season of life.
While it’s true that contentment is not defined by the
circumstances in which we find ourselves, it is also true that we derive the
feeling of contentment through assessing our life moving towards the goals and
desires we have planned. I have learned that contentment comes when you wake up
each morning acknowledging that whether or not you have that thing you want
most, that relationship or job or house or pair of jeans, God is enough and that
what He gives is enough. Contentment comes from gratitude. It comes from saying
thank you, God, for what You have given me, whether it is what I think I want
or not. It is looking to the Have’s instead of the Have-Nots. It is finding in
yourself a joy that is insuppressible because it comes from God.
I am wired to want the Next in order to make me content. “If
only I had...” is the dangerous mantra that tempts me daily. Today I can say
that I am truly content with everything I have, everything I am, and everything
I someday want, because I do not lack in anything in Christ. I am reminded of
His gifts, especially the greatest gift of His Love. Because in His love, I
experience how to love others, know the love of Ben, and pour out to my
neighbors. It is His Love that brings life to the full – it is not anything
else.
I know it’s probably the Newlywed Bliss talking, but I want
to freeze-frame these days and nights to capture all the goodness so that I can
revisit it over and over again. Being Ben’s wife is a calling I am fulfilling; the
role of his partner and teammate to cheer him on, adventure alongside him, and
do the normal things like make dinner, watch TV, brush our teeth, and say
goodnight. How lucky I am to be the recipient of his love, and to get to love
him in return.
I am reading through Hebrews, and I recently came across this
verse in 4:1-2: Therefore, since a
promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have
come short of it. For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them;
but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith
in those who heard it.
The word “rest” in this context stood out to me – the idea
throughout Hebrews is that rest is entered through faith. Unbelief will make us
fall short of the rest God has for us because it leaves us on a constant search
towards answers, identity, and unfulfilled promises. Receiving His Rest means that our souls can be at
peace because everything written about Christ and life in Him, is true. We don’t
have to wonder about purpose, seek fulfillment, fear death, or fulfill human
longings with temporal highs.
While rest and contentment are different, they carry similarities.
I am at rest because of who I am in Christ and what He did for me on the Cross.
I am content because I get to live out His gifts and notice His imprint on my
life. His love is tangible and real – it is a love I hope everyone to know
because the intimacy, unconditionality, and reward of it is unlike anything
else. This love I know to even greater depths because of Ben, and that’s why I
sense a contentment and a rest in this season that is unlike others. Though I
have long known the love of Christ, I now experience a new joy, beauty, and peace
in it because of God’s love in Ben.
I am thankful that I can find all my delight in Him because
it makes everything in the day-to-day feel like a gift to be discovered instead
of a burden to bear. God gave me Ben to know His love, and fulfillment of His promise
puts my soul at true rest.
