Content

 

 

Just after Christmas a word popped into my head for the New Year. 

 Many years ago I talked to a friend who always adopts a word for the new year - listen, try harder (that's 2 words, I know!), rest... and I thought that was so cool.  But as I sat and tried to think of my word for the new year, I panicked with the pressure of choosing the right word!  So I let go of the whole "word for the new year" thing!  Until a few years back when I was sitting at Westward Beach, partaking in my New Year's tradition of sitting at the beach alone recapping the year that just ended and looking forward, prayerfully, to the one just beginning.  It was that day that God impressed a word upon my heart for that new year, or phrase rather, "Be strong & Courageous."  Little did I know that I was entering the start of a 2 year battle with loss and anxiety.  God knew what He was doing that day - encouraging me to be strong and courageous for what was yet to come!

 

Since then, I have been grateful that on my traditional New Year's Day at the beach, God has given me a word for the year. 

This year it came early! 

 

Content

 

That was the word the came like a lightening bolt, striking my heart.  Content.

 

Being a former perfectionist, I've been programmed to always be looking for things to be better, stronger, faster, more productive...  Nothing wrong with striving for better things in life, but taken to an extreme, it can kill you!  Also, there can be an undercurrent of discontentment that always drives someone to have a wandering eye or change things and "make them better." Towards the end of 2014 I began to see how discontentment has crept into many areas of my life - family, friends, home décor, church, me... 

 

If we are always looking for something other than we've been given,

we miss out on the gift that is right now. 

 I realized that I've been missing out on a lot!

 

2015 is the year that I'm going to be content. Not because I'm going to suppress any desires I have for something new or different, but because I'm going to trust that God is for me, has my best in mind, and He has given me all I need in this moment.

 

Psalm 23  "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want."

He is sufficient.  He is all I need and all I want.

Content

 

Happy 2015!