Contentment at Home

At the beginning of each year, our Sunday School class spends 1 or 2 weeks going over prayer concerns for the coming year. Each person fills out a paper with prayer requests for themselves and family members, and our teacher prays over each person, culminating with the #1 prayer request for that person. This year my #1 request was to have joyful and willing obedience and submission to the Holy Spirit, the key being joyful and willing. Sometimes I'm obedient, but I'm not very willing or joyful about it! In thinking about this recently, I wondered exactly how I could do this. What attitudes do I need to change? One answer that was given to me was, become more content in what I have and where I am at in my life so that I can focus more on what the Holy Spirit wants and not what I want. So I thought over the next few weeks I'd share a few ways in which I'm trying to do that, particularly in my home. Most of these examples will be frugal, of course, where applicable.

Today a little background: I was divorced in 2001, when the twins were 6 years old. I have full custody; their dad did not want any part of custody and now generally sees them voluntarily once a year even though he lives in the same town. The decision to divorce was made the first weekend of June, and it was obvious that neither of us would be able to afford to keep the home we shared out in the country. It was my goal to get into a home here in town in enough time that the kids would be settled before school started in August. At this time I was only working part-time, 20 hours a week, so financing would be an issue as would the area of town that I could afford. Thankfully God had things already worked out. We looked at several houses before finding one that was priced exactly in my range, and after short negotiations, the home was mine. We were able to move in 3 weeks before school started, and the school was just a block away. We were 5 minutes from my mother and less than 10 minutes from the kids' paternal grandfather and from our church. The house did not need major repairs, although over the years I added glass block basement windows for safety issues and central air conditioning.

I know without a doubt that God put us here, knowing we would need to be close to my mother with her health issues, that we would have safe and affordable housing and that the kids would have a good school experience in their elementary years. He allowed me to be able to pick up full-time hours at my job the day before we moved here so that I could afford the home, utilities, etc., and still work at home to be with my children. I also know that we are still here for reasons only God knows. I deeply desire to be back in the country, but He has not yet opened that door, and I need to be content here, knowing that His plans for me may be that I live here the rest of my life. But as long as I concentrate on what I want (being back in the country), I will have a harder time joyfully and willingly obeying the Holy Spirit, so I need to change my thinking. Much of this change will come through prayer, but there are also a few things I've done and will do in the future at little cost that will help me be more content and will help to eliminate distractions so that my focus will be on Him. Next Thursday I'll share how I changed the look of our bathroom for $20, making it much more pleasing to look at!