Today was a hard day I had the normal stuff, going back to work, dealing with people at work that frustrate me, running to get pain pills from the doctor before work and a doctor's appointment on my lunch break that made yet another defining decision in my health life that I wasn't happy about.
Then I was in too much pain to go to church or do anything else for that matter, and then I had a whopper of a discussion with my husband that was just barely not an all out fight.
Has anyone noticed me complaining yet?
Not outright, no, in fact most people would read this post and be like, wow Kris, you had a really hard day. But was it really?
No. It wasn't. Work was what it's expected to be, work. Getting pills and doctor appointments have become every week kinds of things for me, and bad news about my health. Well I've only got one body and it will last as long as God decides it will. The pain, temporary, the fight, I love Eric and he loves me and we hurt each other good and proper, but we will be together forever because that's who we are and we are blessed to have each other. I specifically am blessed to have found someone who loves me so much.
I see in myself this tendency, to never want what I have and to want everything that I don't. What is that entitlement issue? Pride. I deserve better than this. How dare I only have a loving God, a family that adores me, a beautiful house with a dog and 3 cats? How could I ever possibly be happy with a job that pays the bills, friends who care deeply for me and would do just about anything to help me? How badly do I have it that I am spiritually challenged by God through people, circumstances, and suffering almost daily?
Seriously? That is the way I think sometimes. All of the blessings that I have in a day are wiped out because of a couple of bad things happening? Then I act like I deserve better. So what is it that I actually really want to be better?
Do I delve deep into myself and say, wow, my life would be so much easier and happier if I just expected less? Or do I look at the world and the people around me to provide more than what I already have? Do I make other's responsible for my happiness?
Where is my grace? Where is my forgiveness? Where is my love for goodness sake?
So here is the truth from my perspective and God's, be content. Now, this is not an excuse to get lazy in my relationships, or to take a break from working. But this is an honest to goodness look at my heart and realize that nobody owes me anything.
That's right, you heard it here first.(not really) The world doesn't owe me anything. They didn't ask me to exist, they didn't demand that I come here and start complaining from the moment that I arrived about how hard my life is.
I can't walk a mile in my own shoes without finding something I don't like, let alone having to walk in the shoes of a cancer patient, or a starving child in Africa, or a tortured woman who has no say as to who her body is given to. Yet as I was talking at(yes, at him) my poor Eric and telling him how hard things were for me, the voice in the back of my head (it was God) was saying, "this man loves you and you are hurting him", yet I still kept going. I watched the sadness come into his eyes and watched as he stopped being walled in and became hurt.
Was that my goal?
It wasn't, but it didn't stop me from being selfish and awful and in that moment everything that I don't like about myself. Why? Because I'm selfish. I'm working on it, but man, when it comes out it really comes out.
I am incredibly blessed and yet I allow myself to overlook all that I have so that I can focus on the one thing that I can't. I should be content with anything I have let alone everything I have but that entitlement and selfishness shows up every time and it always costs me or someone I love something.
Scripture says: Hebrews 13:5
Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”
People say that's about money, but really it's about God promising never to leave or forsake me. That should be enough.
Hopefully I can start to put my own needs and wants and desires on the back burner and let someone else have what they want for a change. I think that God will give me contentment in that if I let him.
Kris
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