Things keep breaking! In the past two months we have had our minivan break (going on 6 weeks in the garage), the truck we are borrowing break while our van is repaired, the printer break, the coffee pot break, the microwave break, the humidifier break, and a tray table break.
On top of that we live in upstate NY that has gotten 2 feet of snow with wind gusts up to 30 miles per hour. Which means plowing and plowing and more plowing. We are house sitting and the house we are watching got drifted in and the heat shut off for a few days bringing the temp down to 44 degrees... so more shoveling and digging out to get the heat to work again.
I am done! I am tired, worn-out and mentally spent.
Now, in the long run is a humidifier a horrible thing to loose?... not really. I get that.
But I am just tired of chasing the broken.
...I am tired of giving up a whole Saturday that was supposed to be about finishing trim in an unfinished bedroom for an emergency plow job.
...I am tired of having to throw another appliance out and spending money on a new one.
I don't want to spend anymore money on these things. I want to spend money on a new outfit, I want to spend money on a vacation. I want, I want, I want.... there in lies the heart of the issue....
CONTENTMENT
I have always struggled with this issue and it only seems to intensify this time of year. I not sure if it is the snowed in, bitter cold, nasty weather or the just spent a ton of money at Christmas and hoarding money now attitude... but still I feel stuck.
My dad keeps saying at least it's things that are breaking and not the people in your life... but in way I feel broken.
We are working on Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace steps and are on Baby Step #3... It is HARD! It is taking forever! We had hardly any debt to begin with and we had a little saved to begin with so steps #1 and #2 were easy peasy! But since we did not have to really debt snowball we didn't have anything to roll over into building this emergency fund. We did not have car payments, cable, eating out, or huge spending habits that were easily cut. We already live on a minimal budget, trying to make a savings out of that is HARD. On top of that we are living on one income and homeschooling... so the money that is not dedicated to just making this household run (and currently just fixing things) is just trickling in. It is sometimes frustrating... I don't like it! (ahem... free spirit speaking here)
ok... but back to CONTENTMENT... the big ugly word in my life right now... the thing I don't want to admit is really the broken thing in my life.
I am leaning on the words of my lovely sister-in-law right now, "don't hang on to it anymore, throw it at the feet of Christ." So here is little ol' me working through this...
I am gonna throw this insatiable desire for the things of this world right where it belongs... down at the feet of Christ.
...I am not gonna worry about how much money is in our bank account, I am just gonna keep working on not overspending and keeping to the budget that my nerd of a Prince Charming has set before us because that is honoring to him.
....I am not gonna freak when something else falls apart, because I will remember we live in a broken world and things will break.
...I will be ok with not going on an expensive vacation even though I feel like I deserve it, because in reality, I don't deserve it.
What I deserve, I didn't get. It was death. It was separation from the holy and loving God.
And I didn't get that because someone else did.
...Jesus Christ did.
He took himself, a perfect and sinless God and poured himself in a man. He than made himself of no reputation, scorned as a matter of fact, by the very creation he made. He then took my sin (ahem... lack of CONTENTMENT) upon himself and said here let me that for you.
So from now on I choose to remember that
...things of this world will break,
...people of this world will fail me,
...my bank account will probably never be where I want it to be,
...and I won't get what I think I deserve.
Instead I got Jesus and that will be enough.
