Nine months ago my life exploded into chaos and ever since I've been in survivalist mode. My favorite daydream for months-on-end was the one where I got to be at home for more than several days in a row and my calendar was filled with mundane tasks instead of funerals and doctor appointments. My greatest craving was normalcy.
But here's the kicker: now that I'm home and the dust has settled, I'm not sure that I like this new normal. You know, the one where I have the time to really feel the gaping hole left in my life by tragedy. In every familiar chore I feel the weight of loss, the knowledge that I can't call my dad for help on my car or ask my mother-in-law to grab coffee with me on a Sunday afternoon. What I thought would bring me a semblance of peace feels instead like a dead end.
After the death of my dad, my mom once said, "I feel like the woman whose life stopped."
Take that in for a moment, because I think reflected in her raw statement is a reality we each face: when life trips us with a vicious kick to the shins we often fear that we will never be able to reengage in the race, especially when when we see other runners flying past with ease.
All I craved for so long was stability and monotony but when I got what I wanted it wasn't enough; I still felt the sharp sting of discontent. I looked at my friends who had healthy babies, who had both their parents still, who had successful careers... and I mourned that my life didn't look like theirs.
You see, when you find yourself in a new, unwanted normal, when your life feels like its stopped, its so easy to look at other people's lives and think that God gypped you.
“There’s always somebody who’s got something better than you’ve got, and it creates discontent. Your peace and your hope and your contentment should never be in that stuff, and if it is, if thats what your depending on, you will always look at that and say ‘I’m not sure if I have enough’. ”
When I was a kid my family did a lot of hiking. I used to HATE hiking because I tripped about every five steps trying to keep up with my brothers instead of paying attention to my surroundings. My focus wasn't on the path and as a result I never enjoyed myself.
Here's the reality folks: if you are busy looking at the other runners or trying to keep up with them, you're going to stumble.
Contentment is never found in comparison. Contentment is never found in competition. Contentment is never found in ungrounded claims to an effortless life.
“The secret to a content life, to living in all the circumstances, is to recognize that I can live my life in one way and one way only: through my dependence on the power of God. So here is the question: do you really believe that God will not leave you, no matter what? ”
As I sat this morning looking at the regimented week ahead and feeling so lost and uncontented in my bizarre new normal, so angry and abondanded by God, my daddy's voice preached to me from a past sermon on my computer. Do you really believe that God will not leave you, no matter what?
Do I, Hannah, believe that God has not left me in the last nine months? Do I believe that He is just as present in my tripped up life as He is in the lives of those around me? Do I believe that he is using my life just as it is, just where I am? Do I believe that He is enough?
When the answer to these questions becomes 'YES', the secret of a content life is revealed.
Our lives become plenty, our paths becomes smooth, when we recognize that they are bound up in the gracious, loving, perfect will of God.
“I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”