I Am Not Content. And It Wounds The People I Love.

I have more material possessions than 95% of the current human population on this earth.

I’m typing out this post from the comfort of my king sized, memory foam bed, an Organic Cotton pillow snuggled into my lower back, and five other non-essential pillows that perfectly complement my stripped jersey duvet that covers my down comforter.

And still I am not content.

I have the sweetest husband on earth. He works incredibly hard at everything he does. Never complains. Like, legitimately NEVER complains. He has rubbed my feet more times than I can count. And has laughed with me ten thousand times, and held my hand so often that I’d know the touch of his fingers anywhere.

I love him so deeply I can feel it my bones.

And still I am not content.

My eyes wander to the carefully constructed profiles of bloggers I follow and I think, they probably never fight, or at least not as much as we do. I see their homes, their “lives,” and unrest creeps in before I am even aware it is there.

I am selfish often and expect far too much while extending far too little grace. Just being real.

I have three amazing, healthy kids. In 7 years of mothering, we have only needed antibiotics twice, and have never had a hospital stay. And I never remember to be thankful for this. Never.

I have been coloring and trimming my own hair for years because regular trips to the salon just don’t fit into our budget…and I constantly feel sorry for myself, that I have to do this unglamorous upkeep and I regularly find myself envious of others, and their pretty pictures of salon styled hair, and I find all the unrest creeping in even deeper. Even typing that out feels so stupid.

I compare my home to the homes of others, spending hours and hours day dreaming about updates and what I would change and all the ways I could make my house perfect. And I fully realize that being creative and wanting to create a beautiful space to live life in is not wrong in the least bit…its that I struggle to settle into the space I have, to be thankful, to be content, and to NOT judge my value as a human against the perfection of how my home looks.

I  am  b r o k e n . . .

And my brokenness, the sin that rests so deep inside me, just waiting to rise up at a moments notice, to bubble up and out of me, it doesn’t just wound me, it wounds the people I love. My inability to rest in contentment. My inability to actually be thankful. Because I always want more. And if I already have it, I want the newer, better, higher quality version ASAP. You better believe it’s true…

Because I am silly enough and self-focused enough to think that having IKEA dishes instead of Crate&Barrel somehow makes my life less valuable than someone else’s, that driving cars gifted to me means I am less seen by my Heavenly Father than driving a new one off the lot.

And it’s not just the STUFF, you know? I compare myself something fierce to others. Wish I looked differently. Wish I had more wisdom and insights. Wish I wasn’t introverted, because sometimes being drained by lots of interaction feels more like a disability than an intentional design on God’s part. I totally get envious of other writers and bloggers and influencers who seem so far ahead of me…people I have never even met.

You guys, it’s kind of ridiculous. Slap me.

I am learning something so substantial, so weighty in all of this, that God sees the brokenness inside me and his response is not to shame me, his response is to remind me of who I am and to remind me of what actually matters. Because, deep deep deep inside of us, what sin has broken isn’t our ability to maintain perfection, it’s our identity. It has broken who we are. Our souls. Our cells.

My sin, my brokenness…the remedy isn’t perfection or mediation or even self awareness. The remedy is being remade; the remedy is salvation.

If Salvation is the antidote to sin, then Love is the vehicle that carries it across time and space and Grace is what allows us to reach out and accept it. 

Sin unmade us. Jesus remakes us.

And like a cast away tax collector who couldn’t get enough, until he couldn’t get enough of eternal life, I too get to that place where enough is never actually enough and I crave something more…

substantial

eternal

lasting

pure

…until I realize that what actually fills the emptiness is something that is already perfectly whole.

And so I CONFESS, because all true words come from The Living Word.

And in the confessing I am releasing the grip of sin. I am acknowledging the Holy Spirit inside me.

Confession is a spiritual practice that both brings our sin into the light and also invites another person to witness what God is doing in us. It is for us, and for the Body of Believers we belong to.

Here is what I’m learning about myself and this struggle: I was made for more than this world can offer. I was made to be drawn to beauty. It is ok to want beautiful things. But self-centered living is not ok. In all things, I am called to reflect the nature of God, to bring Glory to His Name, to honor Him Out Loud.

I don’t think there are any simple answers…but maybe the reason God has so many n a m e s in scripture is to remind us of how W H O L E He is.

He is Everything.

Which is really great news, because Everything is exactly what my soul aches for.