The Art of Contentment

“Teach my heart to love, not what used to be, not what is to be, but what is.” I wrote these words during a personal season of yearning and disquietness. I felt myself strapped down to painful circumstances, unable to break free from the present pain. My soul seemed to constantly seek escape. I wanted to fly into the past where all was unbroken or to the far-off future when all would be well again.  

Once you have passed through the initial phase of shock following a life-altering event, there can settle in a quiet, low-grade dissatisfaction if not a more open, rumbling bitterness. A state of affairs that can last for years. Like me, you may find yourself falling into a world of fantasy– dreaming of the past or becoming consumed with cravings for the future. You may catch yourself leaking your frustrations… bitterness staining your words, envy growing unbidden in your heart. A five-minute scroll through Facebook may leave you burning with resentment. The smiles, the triviality, the normalcy of the lives of others reminds you that you live in a parallel universe. You are no longer part of the parade. You have been set apart, debarred by heart break.  

Refusing to Love What Is

Whether you are struggling with frustration, discontentment or bitterness, beneath the surface lies an unwillingness to love what is. And little wonder you say. The truth is, we all long for rest. We long for peace and beauty, and when the present holds none of these things there can grow a repugnance for the world around us. It can be difficult to accept, let alone love, when your world is marred by brokenness. Of course, I don’t know what your world consists of at this moment. I don’t know how often you get up at night to give medications, to turn on and off machines, or to clean up messes. I don’t know the things you have seen–the horrific images that are locked in your mind. I do not know the exact details of your nightmare, but I can easily imagine you asking, how am I supposed to love this? How am I supposed to take and draw into my embrace a set of circumstances that only seems to wound me? Can I? Is it possible to love what I despise? Is it possible to take into my arms and cherish the very circumstances that crush my soul?  

Is It Possible?

The answer is, and always will be, you can and you must. Again, I want to assure you that I do not say these things lightly. I know many of you are faced with the task of embracing and accepting seemingly unbearable lives. Some of you are caring for a child that will require life-long care. Some of you who have never heard your child speak; some are being forced to watch your once healthy child lose abilities and fade before your very eyes. And some of you know you will be doing this more than once, with more than one child. Many of you, no doubt, feel as comfortable in a hospital as you do in your own home. You know when shift change occurs, where the warm blankets are kept and how to walk blind-folded from the parking garage to various units. Though each of your stories are different, you are all, someway or another, well-versed in pain, heartbreak and sorrow. What I want you to know now is that if you want to survive, you must become equally well-versed in the art of contentment, for contentment is merely learning to love what is. Contentment is learning to rest both your body and soul in the place that God has placed you and to build a home there. Contentment is an art. It is a skill. It is an evidence of God’s grace, and it is the thing that will carry your soul as you carry the impossible.  

Understanding the Art of Contentment

Now when I speak of contentment, I do not speak about passivity. I am not talking about “giving up” or “just accepting” the set of circumstances you have been handed. Biblical contentment has nothing to do with the “door-mat” mentality that some may think of when they hear the term contentment. Biblical contentment is a much more robust, multifaceted thing. There is room in biblical contentment for the fight; there is a place to stretch and reach for cures and progress. Biblical contentment doesn’t compel us to resignation; it merely teaches us to embrace what is before us with gratitude while ever working to change it. Biblical contentment has two hands: one that draws the present to its heart and the other that reaches out in hope.  

Learning the Art of Contentment

The apostle Paul, a man who speaks from experience when it comes to hardships, took time to teach about his experience in learning the art of contentment. In the book of Philippians he writes of both embracing and seeking in the face of difficulty, saying, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God” (Phil 4:6). Here we receive permission, and truly instruction, to yearn–to lift our faces to God and to cry out for hope, healing, change, answers—while at the same time wrapping our arms around what we have before us and bathing it in gratitude. So often, in the midst of pain we instinctively cry out–prayer and supplication flow from us as naturally as tears. Yet, Paul wisely urges us to add to those prayers something that does not come naturally. He reminds us to be thankful. Gratitude, you see, is the doorway to contentment. You cannot be thankful and discontent at the same time. You cannot be both grateful and bitter. It is as if thankfulness bends the elbow allowing us to take the circumstances that we had been holding at arm’s length and to draw them to our hearts. When I prayed, “God, give my daughter the ability to eat–make her hungry, make her willing, make her able! But, oh God, thank you for her G-tube, thank you for this formula, thank you for this pump–for keeping her alive so that I may have these days with her.” I clothed myself in biblical contentment. I cried out for healing while loving what I had before me. When you pray for a night of uninterrupted sleep while thanking God for the child causing those interruptions, when you pray for the subsiding of medication side effects while thanking God for medication itself, you are clothing yourself in biblical contentment. You are learning the skill of resting in the place that God has placed you, and you are building a home of loving gratitude there.

Mastering the Art of Contentment

Yes, the skill at first may seem unnatural. You may begin clumsily and grow frustrated; but like any skill, in time you will grow more adept. You will see things you have never seen before. You will see, like tiny rays of light in the midst of great darkness, God’s kindness and provision. You will perceive His love flowing steadily, faithfully towards you even through the pain. You will find yourself building a home of gratitude in places you never thought possible. You will find yourself able to rest in circumstances you never dreamed you could. Pursue the art of contentment. Be thankful; teach your tongue to offer prayers of gratitude. You can survive these days. You need not be a slave to bitterness. Learn to love not what used to be, not what is to be, but what is.  

Philippians 4:11-13

“Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me.”

“The Art of Contentment” is part of Katie Piazza’s thirty-day devotional entitled Awakening Hope. Available at Amazon: Awakening Hope

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