My biggest fear in life is a lack of contentment.  Forget the things you once knew about me, this is the real me.  I have a fear of being discontent.  When I think about the things of this world: things, pleasures, etc. I never find happiness there.  In fact I don’t even find contentment.  What I find is a dreadful emptiness.  It seems the more worldly I become the more this emptiness fills me. 

How can I ever find joy when I have nothing to give me joy? Well I  can find joy in Christ. That’s something to be thankful for.  Yet somehow I still turn to the world and the things that don’t satisfy. I turn to earthly riches and pleasures.  I’m the one feeding my fear.  I’m not perfect…nowhere near it. I daily find myself disobeying God in pursuit of contentment.  This is even after I know I can only find contentment in Christ.

You see here is the thing about contentment, it’s better than happiness.  Happiness is a feeling that can quickly change, contentment is more of a lasting emotion.  One that lasts through other emotions.  In my opinion, I’d rather be content than happy.  Something scary happened to me however.  I lost myself and every ounce of contentment I had.  I gave up every bit of satisfaction.  I traded it for a life of self satisfaction.  That life wasn’t satisfying at all, however. Somewhere in my pursuit of contentment, I lost my contentment.  This drew me into a deep deep depression that has consumed my life since.  How is it that someone could lose something in pursuit of it? How did my depression actually draw me out of discontenment?

The answer is what I mentioned earlier. Christ.  He is the only one that can truly satisfy.  The one that can fill the hole in your heart.  In my depression, I sought after something different than earthly pleasures.  I sought after the God of the universe.  In that pursuit I found contentment.  Amist my depression I found contentment.  I found healing from past wounds.  Though scars remain, I’m forever changed by the great love he has lavished on me. 

Here’s the thing, some people say depression is a lack of faith, but I found it to be quite the opposite.  In my depression  I actually found faith.  He drew me to my deepest place so I would seek him.  Now that’s not to say once I found him my depression disappeared, it didn’t.  I did however find contentment in my life. Not happiness, but contentment. 

Now as I continue to heal, I draw nearer to God and when I screw up I realize where I came from and why I never want to go back.

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