Finding Contentment...

So I've always had this theory that less is indeed more. In marketing, it leaves mystery which is a far better draw than overloaded ads. In writing (although I haven't mastered this), it leaves a far clearer picture of your thesis than ramblings of miscellaneous details. In decorating, it leaves a cleaner feeling space than rooms with far too busy or too cluttered schemes. Anyway, you get my point.

In my life I have found this to be true as well. I know that most people are going to make a snap judgement when they hear this next sentence but, it remains true with or without the assumptions. My dad is a physician. He wasn’t always, he actually used to be in ministry when I was a kid. The transition from ministry to medicine was a long road plagued with financial need. You see when my dad was in ministry, we had very little. We were taken care of but we were not spoiled or lavished with gifts or bonuses, none of that. But as soon as my dad stood up in front of the church and announced that he was going to go to medical school, people began to talk about how much money we’d have and how easy we’d have it. I can remember thinking (I was in the second grade, mind you) that this was going to be awesome! We’d have tons of money and get to go on tons of vacations and get to play together and… well bliss really.

And then we moved, and that fall my dad started classes at the Medical College of Georgia. To be honest, I don’t remember seeing him during those years unless we were on vacation or during a holiday. My mom worked endless hours to try to help defray the cost of life with 2 kids and a student-husband, but it wasn’t ever enough. At a time when the world assumed we’d have it made, we experienced great need.

Later when my dad graduated, he took the four of us on a cruise. I felt so privileged and ritzy! But with time, the vacations remained nice, but we were back to not seeing each other save holidays and special trips. No one in the family was happy. My sister and I both went to private colleges to begin with and then, ironically are finishing here at Augusta State. We all wanted things bigger, better, faster, nicer. It got a bit ridiculous. I’m not even confident that past tense is appropriate because in a lot of ways it’s still the on-going battle.

I say all that to say this: We, as Americans, have it made. Even American homeless people, are richer by far than some of the average classed people of the world. Case in point– The Bridge Church (made up of homeless people in downtown Augusta, Georgia, gathering under the Calhoun Expressway Bridge at 15th street) has given offerings enough to plant two churches, one in Africa and one in China.

Once again I feel like I’m rambling, so I’ve found someone else who clarifies my thoughts a bit more. Christian author and speaker, Beth Moore, has this to say about contentment:

‘Christians like me can not say with the Apostle Paul that we “have learned to be content whatever the circumstances” because most of us have been less content with plenty than we were with less. Ironically, excess only increases discontentment. Why? Proverbs 13:12 offers the perfect explanation: “Hope deferred makes the heart sick”. In other words, we set our hopes on the lie that if we could only have this or that, we will be content. If we get it (or him, her, them, or there), we are astonished to realize that it still doesn’t cut it. Our hope that we’d finally be happy inevitably defers, and our hearts are left sick. At least with less, we still have the fantasy. Those with more and more attend one funeral of expectation after another…..Contentment has little to do with what we have or lack. It is a state of mind. One that is far more often learned than suddenly attained, by the way.'