CONTENTMENT

In our women's group we are reading a book called "how to calm an anxious heart". I think it's pretty challenging so far. Eversince I read the chapter "Content to Be Me" and the chapters following, I've been doing a lot of self-evaluation. I realized that I don't think I'm happy with myself. I've never been the type to have the healthy self-esteem. Lack of attention growing up, not finding a talent that I could be praised for, verbal abuse of being over weight... I found God to be a comfort in times of hardship but my desire to please him was never there. Due to my lack of a relationship with God, I lacked wisdom in my decisions in the past. I made poor decisions and I've been bitter for so long. I know this dwelling of the past makes me angry and more angry. At God? No... I just wonder why God let me make the choices I've made and I have such wounds in my heart ... I wonder when he'll heal them. I want to be content with me, with my life, and with my relationships.

I want to be able to say what Paul said in Philippians 4:11-13:
I'm not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

The very sins that keep me from this contentment is so strong. Its hold on me is so strong. I pray to God to change me but I feel that I take couple steps forward but then I end up taking steps backwards. Forgiveness... why is it so easy to forgive those who don't mean anything but harder to forgive those that mean the world to me. The inability to forgive creates bitterness of the heart. The book quotes "Bitterness seeps into the basement of our lives like run-off from a broken sewer pipe. Every form of ugliness begins to float to the surface of those murky waters: prejudice and profanity, suspicion and hate, cruelty and cynicism. There is no torment like the inner torment of bitterness, which is the by-product of an unforgiving spirit. It refuses to be soothed, it refuses to forget. There is no prison more damaging than the bars of bitterness that will not let the battle end."

The book revealed a prescription for contentment:
1. Never allow yourself to complain about anything- not even the weather
2. Never picture yourself in any other circumstances or someplace else
3. Never compare your lot with another's
4. Never allow yourself to wish this or that had been otherwise
5. Never dwell on tomorrow-remember that tomorrow is God's not ours.

What does this woman of contentment look like ?

I just want to give up and just wallow in my sadness. Is it my pregnancy hormones? Why do I feel so weepy and feel like this injured being? I have so many blessings but I seem to lack trust in God.