I love this post and what the Lord did in our lives during the summer of 2010. As we are saying goodbye to yet another summer {our schools start a week from today!} I am still basking in the truths imparted during the Summer of My Contentment. It will probably go down in our history as one of the worst and one of the best all rolled into one. 🙂
Do you set goals for your summer? Each May, I try to set a few general goals for the upcoming Summer months…usually they are easily attainable goals for peace, rest, renewal, and enjoyable moments with the Lord and my husband, children, and family. Things like:
- Extra time in my Quiet Time with the Lord
- Special moments of Spiritual growth for my children
- Cleaning out of a few things
- Getting a great tan
- Reading some good books
- Watching fam movies
- Playing family games
- Having friends over
- Staying up late
- Sleeping a little later
- Spending time with extended family
Added to these goals for this particular summer, I planned on moving and setting up a new household, getting our children settled into a new town, registering them for school, and joining James in serving the Lord and the people in our new church.
Or, as the Message puts it: “We humans keep brainstorming options and plans, but God’s purpose prevails.” You can’t imagine how many options and plans I/we have brainstormed lately (that, btw, have not worked out at all like we planned)!!!
At this current time, instead of settling into our new life in Cleveland, MS, we haven’t sold our house, or found a new one, and are living between three homes in three cities (Nashville, Batesville, & Cleveland) in two states and traveling back and forth with our goods packed in large Rubbermaid tubs! In a year, we have gone from being a well organized and detail-y scheduled family that felt like we “had it together” (whatever “it” is…) to a family who has no idea what lies beyond the plans for tomorrow.
And do you know what? More than any other lengthy period in my life, there is this consistant, deep sense of the Lord’s Peace blanketing my heart and mind. I can honestly say that I am more content than I have ever been. I guess it’s becuase I’ve finally realized that I can not plan or control or change one tiny thing in our lives right now… not one bit. There is nothing left for me to do but to 100% trust God. Everyday. Every place. In Every way. And all is well.
Reality check: Isn’t that just how God wants us to live all of the time? Not just when our lives are “unstable” – but when our calendars are full and we feel like we “have it all together”?
God’s ways are perfect, and apparently I wouldn’t have learned what God is teaching me in any other way but to be completly stripped of my own plans and my own thoughts and my own calendar. I may not understand much of the “whys” and the “whats”, but I KNOW that the Lord loves us and is working behind the scenes of silence on our behalf… for our good, and for His glory!
Looking back on this summer, I think it will be labeled “The Summer of my Contentment” because, like Paul, “I have learned how to be content (satisfied to the point where I am not disturbed or disquieted) in whatever state I am” (Phil. 4:19). Ha Ha.
Although I’m hoping to soon be in the “State” of Mississippi for good, I desperately pray to retain this level of trust and contentment for the rest of my life!
