Riding the Coaster with Contentment
If life were a roller coaster, I have been on the lowest dip just after the steepest plunge. I lost so much in that fearful free fall with my health and losing my husband in the midst of it. Layer upon layer, my grief stacked up to the point that I wondered how much more I could endure. I suffered physically in ways that kept me pinned down and unable to engage in life, and emotionally, in the isolation of complicated grief. I lost any sense of control I had over my life as I watched it crash and shatter to bits.
In this state, every sense of security had been stripped away. It felt like I was laid bare with nothing to steady me. But I knew God’s Spirit was near. I had nothing but time to sort through my thoughts, ponder my losses, and lift it all up to the One who knew my future and held me close. Sometimes I got visual images or phrases that brought life to my soul and comforted my heart. In this level of raw grief, the comfort of the Lord is less like a donut hole completely filling the hole in a donut, but more like breadcrumbs of hope that He leads us to in our process. I filled up pages and pages documenting the bits of hope I found.
When I experienced small physical improvement, it made a huge impact and I celebrated that. I was joyful to see any sign of what my husband had prayed and believed for; my healing. But the physical crisis was as unpredictable as the grief waves. What made it worse was that when one hit, it would escalate the other. There was no remedy for either. I rode out the waves that crashed over me, and I became very good at watching for the waves of grace that would lift me back up. In emptiness, I realized that filling will come, drop by drop sometimes. It’s much like walking out our healing instead of it happening in one miraculous event. But, whichever way it happens, being filled up, healed, and whole again is His power at work within us.
I woke up and reached for my laptop to write about contentment this morning. I wanted to document what happened to me two weeks ago when I was deep in sorrow. It’d been a couple of excruciating weeks, and then one day the word contentment dropped into my consciousness. I remembered the Bible verse I’d memorized where Paul says, “I know what it is to be in need, I know what it is to have plenty, I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want, I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.”
After this came to mind, I turned it into a one-liner, prayer-on-the-go. I call this kind of interaction with God, a popcorn prayer. The next day I realized the heaviness in my heart was gone. It’s been an amazing couple of weeks since then, still weird but good. This morning, I looked up the word contentment, and I found the dictionary’s definition isn’t mine. I’m not “totally satisfied and happy” about where I am in life! Are you kidding?! But, I am content nonetheless.
This kind of contentment is a gift I’ve received from the best Gift Giver. He knows my heart and my needs. He will keep leading me out of the valley and into new places that are tailor-made for me. And if I can trust Him in little things like contentment, then I will surely trust Him in the bigger things in life. I share this because if it can happen in my life, I believe it can happen for anyone. I get so much out of hearing people’s stories and what they’ve been through. So, I’m determined to tell my own. We all have struggles, it’s what happens in the midst of them that intrigues me. If you’re struggling, just know—you’re my people.
Contentment allows God’s uncreated Life to flow into my life. That must be why, when I went to get my hair cut yesterday, my hairstylist said it looked like I was glowing. Her words caught me off guard. Of all the words she could’ve used…glowing?! If that’s true, then I really am a walking-out-my-healing and glowing kind of miracle. I open my hands and receive the gift of life and all the grace God has available for me today!
Learning the secret of being content in all things,
—Tami Sorenson Gaupp