The Secret to Contentment

I'm 36.
I think I may just be starting to figure some things out that have eluded me my entire lifetime.
It's actually a little scary to "say" that out loud because it feels like I'm inviting a testing.
It's not that I have this deal totally licked. I'm not an expert (just like I'm not an expert in waiting).
I was thinking about this tonight because I realize that I am finally starting to be content with my life.
Things are not perfect. Are they ever really?
Things are overall good but there are many, many things that I want/need to change.
There are a couple of huge things on my heart that I have zero actual control over.
If you know me at all, lack of control is usually my gateway to discontent!
Still, I am learning to be content.

The verses I keep going to in my head are in Philippians 4:11-13

Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

The picture I posted at the beginning of this post is a significant moment for me spiritually. It was taken at a location that is also significant. Actually I need to write about that moment, place, and time. But this picture in time was at the ending of a really deep depression. I had been sinking for months and months before my sweet friend Angela cared enough to say  "if you ever need to talk, I'm here." God used those words and my Godly friend Angela to begin to bring me out.

This picture was taken in November of that year. At that moment I was the heaviest I had ever been. The depression was finally starting to lift. I was beginning to see light.

I asked my brother to drive me out to this lake (a place where a prayer, in faith, had been miraculously answered when I was 16). I needed to go back to a place where I had seen God move powerfully.

Thankfully, that day He chose to move powerfully again.

So thankful that my brother took the pictures that I have to mark that time.

Tonight I am sharing with you my reminder for myself. It really is a lesson for me, but I pray that it's for one of you too.

The secret to contentment does not lie with me. It's not my attitude really. It's my choice to trust that God's sovereign plan is always at work.

In plenty or abundance; in hunger or need that plan remains.

He is working.

Even when I think I am in control, I am not. There is great freedom in that realization.

There is a release in contentment.

There is a freedom.

It is glorious.

- Gina