Contentment Is A Learned Practice

I’ve gotten to an age where I just love feeling contentment. I’ve had enough drama in my lifetime that now I’m at a point where I just want to surround myself with contentment and serenity. So how do I do that you may ask?

I’ve learned that being content first of all happens with a lot of prayer — at least in my life. I let God handle any anxiousness that I may have, because He told me to unload my burdens on Him, so after all these years of fighting within my own thoughts of anxiousness, I’ve finally learned to do that.

Another way I find contentment is to read. I remember as a young girl I had a hard time reading, because I had a hard time with comprehension. I still have a hard time with retaining what I read, but I select books that are inspiring and up lifting.  I adore devotionals or books that have short chapters. I really like reading biographies of people who have overcome huge obstacles in their lives and are living testimonies as to how their lives were changed by God and the perseverance instilled within them to make those changes instead of being stuck in a place of darkness.

I find contentment in creativity. I do this through playing music on my piano and through art. There are other creative things I have found as well, such as gardening, rearranging a room and adding decor that reflects my personality and provides me joy. In art, I have found different mediums to work with such as clay, beads, and paper. I also love arranging flowers too.

Spending time with family and friends brings me an enormous amount of contentment. Even though we don’t live near each other anymore, when we spend time together, it is quality time. My greatest contentment that doesn’t happen as often as it used to is when my children spend a weekend with me and all of them are in my house under one roof. When this happens, it always gives me a sense of what heaven will feel like when we will have unlimited access to our families there. At least that is my vision of what heaven will be like. I know when I have to say goodbye to my friends and family after a long visit, I yearn for the day we will be able to meet up again.

I find contentment in sitting in the living room with my companion and just conversing about everything. Sometimes we have coffee we are sharing together or eating our meals. We bought these wonderful recliners that are electric and I’ve put cushions on them to make them more comfortable to sit in. We enjoy watching live stream or television together. We also can sit in silence each enjoying our own reading, tablets and/or phones.

I find contentment in going on line and engaging in Bible Studies with other Christians and sharing our thoughts on what we are studying. I love how encouraging they can be. I do this through a platform that is part of Harvest Christian Fellowship — it is the Harvest Discipleship App. It has a whole plethora of resources to get you plugged in to your belief of God. I just love it. I have made several friends there. I also find contentment in live streaming the Sunday Services  (8:00AM, 10:00AM and 12:00 Noon) usually presented by Pastor Greg Laurie and any programs outside of just the Sunday services. They live stream Harvest Crusade, special concert events and guest speakers, along with podcasts. It is quite a positive platform to find spiritual engagement.

In my Bible Studies on line, sometimes it still hurts my brain, because I’m learning. So outside of the Bible Studies, I have found ways to receive a better understanding of what I’m reading. I don’t know if I read it or just figured out that sometimes, it might take going back and learning as a child to fully grasp a concept being presented. So I recently purchased several children’s resources, even a book on learning Systematic Theology in order to support what I’ve been learning. I ordered a children’s The Big Bible Story Book for Children with beautiful illustrations that also has some scripture cards you can purchase separately to pull a card out each day with a different scripture to read that correlates with the Bible Stories. I also found these wonderful scripture cards from 828 (derived from Romans 8:28) that has a scripture on it and on the bottom of the card is a QR code that you can scan from your phone or tablet and it takes you into deeper resources for learning the history and meaning behind the scripture you are reading for the day. I have a prayer devotional book that I start my day off with to keep me focused on moving forward with my day in a spiritual mindset. I recently received a very cool resources referral from the young lady who leads our Harvest Discipleship Cohort studies, so that I can further study what the scriptures are saying that go with our study for the day — it is called Enduring Word and is a free application you can download. You can put any scripture that you want a further understanding about and it gives you commentary information. It has really been helpful for me to further understand some areas that I find a little confusing as I read scripture. All these things bring me contentment in my life.

Sometimes I just like putting on my AirPods and listening to music. My first choice of music enjoyment is worship music. I love all genres of music, but I truly love relaxing instrumental music. I also have Google Dots all around my house, so in one command I can have music instantly filling the house. Sometimes, I indulge in taking a short nap and when I do, I usually ask Google to play instrumental worship music which lulls me to sleep.

I daily go on social media. There was a time when I wasn’t finding contentment in doing that anymore because of strife and such. However, I learned that there is a way to change your algorithms that reflect what you would rather see on your wall than just random information that sometimes can be distressing. Most of my threads are positive family postings, spiritual context, art and many positively inspirational readings. I also enjoy that my algorithms have picked up that I’m into weight control and ideas on how to lose and keep the weight off — so I follow many inspiring people on their weight journeys. It took a little bit of work and time to eliminate the things that I didn’t want on my thread. My Harvest Discipleship App also gives me notifications all day long and I’m able to read what other church members have posted.

I just thought I’d share with you some ideas on how I bring contentment in my life, just in case you are looking for ideas on how you can shut off the world in your life and find ways to relax and be content.