Choosing Contentment
Reflecting on My Yearly Word Choices.
I am not sure what I expected at the beginning of 2024. I know in 2023, my word was “Intentional.” I wrote a blog for that year with this quote:
"When you are intentional, you choose to make decisions and take action on what's important to you. Being intentional means getting clear upfront about what you want to achieve. You intentionally set an intention to achieve a specific outcome or result in the future that is important to you." -Mark Pettitt
I truly was intentional in 2023 and my intentional choices—like to do further healing—landed me in new realms of messiness in 2024. But the goodness of my life was not consumed by the messiness as has happened in other times of my life.
We have lived in the cottage for a little over a year, have enjoyed our small town, could not ask for better friends as neighbors, and have enjoyed many family days on the back porch. Life has been good.
I had to dig deep into my Facebook posts to find my word for this year—actually, two words—Enjoying Wonderland. I can say that I successfully fulfilled that goal for 2024, despite not remembering what I said. The weekly RockWall Chronicles have provided a place to document the fulfillment of those words. So, while 2024 has been challenging in many ways, I am thankful to face those difficulties in a place I love so much.
So, now I turn to 2025. Goodness, how did we get to 2025 already? When I was a teenager, that date felt like it belonged in a science fiction story. Some of the current plots we are living through do seem surreal, but they are our reality. Here we are. What word should I choose now?
Contentment: A feeling of quiet happiness and satisfaction, often because you have everything you need. Feeling or showing satisfaction with one's possessions, status, or situation. A state of being satisfied with one’s life and with what one has.
For me, contentment has never been greatly connected with possessions and status was only alluring when validation was so desperately needed. At this point, my situation and life circumstances, while not uncomplicated, are truly satisfying.
Contentment is a perfect word, because I have no need to strive for anything more than what I already have or all I have already accomplished. It truly is enough. I will be grateful for opportunities that arrive at my doorstep, but am content without them. Do I have dreams yet unfulfilled? Don’t we all? It seems important to always have a dream that just might be possible. A perfect life doesn’t mean all dreams come true.
“And if perfection alludes us, it doesn’t matter for what we
have within the moment is enough.”
—Call the Midwife (our current winter binge)
Finally, while wandering about the internet while I reflected on contentment, I serendipitously spotted Dr. Seuss’ Guide to Contentment. Well done Neil Ihde!
My word in 2024 was "persevere", and that we did! We even celebrated that, even though we continue in the same limbo land we've been in since August 2023, we made it through, and even had some victories - kiddo2 got his high school diploma (and we all survived it!) - we were able to plant and harvest which seemed impossible in the Spring and then in the drought - we served 6 different churches through itinerant preaching. Plus, I have been fully booked in my business since February. So "persevere+" I guess?
My word for this year is "cultivate." I hesitated when it came to me as I had already worked really hard to bloom where I was planted even though I didn't want to be here at first, only to have my roots yanked on in hard ways over the last two years. But we can't thrive if we don't cultivate (says the farmer's wife).
Habakkuk 3: 17-19
Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.
The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
He enables me to tread at high heights.
I am starting by taking care of myself —cultivating my health, which has languished for the last six years, must happen. I'm at a turning point. That is first and enough of a starting field to do the work.