When What I Had Wasn't Enough

Sometimes I read through the journals I kept while Naomi was small, but there are some pages I dread rereading. Why? Because on those pages I wrote of wanting, no, of aching for more than I already had.

I was not content, even though I had so much.

I always put down these journals and remember farther back to the church service where I prayed with my whole heart for a child. I was having that enormous, Rachel-like "Oh God, give me children, or I shall die!" ache, yet I'd been unable to conceive. Amazingly, within one month after that heart cry, I did conceive.

And for awhile, Naomi was more than enough. But then later, I wanted another child and that did not happen, no matter how many heart cries and pleadings I flung toward God.

So then my heart started aching for other things. Money was one. God moved us to Nevada and gave us more money than our little family needed. I experienced what many people never get to--how having a purse full of money when I went shopping did not take away an inherent loneliness. My 'wealthy' Nevada Years were the most depressing years of my entire life.

So then my heart began aching for friends. The Nevada desert felt more like a friendship desert, so I wrote in to Women's Household Magazine for pen pals. And for awhile this flood of friends inside my mailbox was enough.

But that was during the 1980's when a career was everything and if you were a woman without a career you were Nothing (with a capital N). Moms returned to school or the workforce and magazines told me I had better go, too, or I'd always be Nothing. (For a better idea of the propaganda we were fed, check out Mel's post at Actual Unretouched Photo.) For awhile I tried to convince myself I, too, would be happy and fulfilled if, like everyone else, I got a career. But I never did. Instead, I just sat at home and felt sorry for my unappreciated, Nothing self.

I had so much-- a terrific husband and daughter and a home and cats and a garden and a church and a few good friends. But always, they were enough for just a little while. And always, I'd end up wanting something else after that little while had passed.

And only years later did I discover what God was doing.

He was letting me find out for myself that all the stuff on this Earth, all the things and people and relationships and houses and careers and friendships and appreciation and fame and pets--each of them are only temporarily satisfying. Each of them bring just a timed contentment and the contentment they derive is always running out of time, like sand in an egg timer.

I had to find out for myself that only God is enormous enough for my enormous needs. Only my friendship with Him is Enough (with a capital E).

Only my relationship with Him comes with Timeless Contentment like sand in a giant egg timer whose top is so tall, it touches the skies.

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"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.'" ... Hebrews 13:5

"But godliness with contentment is great gain." I Timothy 6:6