Prescription for Contentment

The following is an excerpt from Linda Dillow's book, Calm My Anxious Heart. This book has been a catlyst for heart-change in me over the past few years -- and it continues. That's why I'm reading it again... I hope you will find this helpful - and I hope you purchase this book (or any of her books, for that matter!).

"An eternal perspective, then, is God's way of seeing. When we have God's perspective, we view our lives and evaluate what is important from His viewpoint. That's what Ella did.

Along with her husband and children, Ella worked as a missionary with the pygmies in Africa for fifty-two years. She had left her country, her family, and all that was familiar. Primitive doesn't begin to describe her living conditions in the scorching heat and humidity of the African bush. But Ella found no relief because electricity, air conditioning, and other modern conveniences were only a dream. Some days it was so unbearably hot that she had to bring the thermometer inside because it couldn't register past 120 degrees without breaking.

Ella's daughter, Mimi, is my friend. Mimi wondered how her mother had done it -- how she had lived a life of contentment when her circumstances would have caused the hardiest to complain. Recently Mimi unearthed a treasure, a much more significant find than gold or silver. In an old diary of her mother's, she discovered Ellas' prescription for contentment:

• Never allow yourself to complain about anything - not even the weather.
• Never picture yourself in any other circumstances or someplace else.
• Never compare your lot with another's.
• Never allow yourself to wish this or that had been otherwise
• Never dwell on tomorrow - remember it is God's not ours.

Her words overwhelm me; they shame me How could Ella not complain of the weather when the perspiration dripped off her, when the stale, humid air kept her from sleeping? What made her everyday focus so different...? The secret is in Ella's last statement. Her eyes were fixed on eternity. Her tomorrows belonged to God. She had given them to Him. And because all her tomorrows were nestled in God's strong arms, she was free to live today. One day at a time she could make the right choices and grow to posses the holy habit of contentment. Ella's focus was eternal, and her focus led to an internal contentment."