Contentment is realizing that God has already given you everything you need for your present happiness. He’s given you his Son, and he is everything.
Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada celebrating a glass half-full!
That’s right! I want to tell you about a new friend of mine, named Summer. She’s a beautiful, young, athletic girl who was a lifeguard at a pool. Summer broke her neck not long ago and she’s paralyzed in a wheelchair, but this young woman can move her wrists a little bit, and one or two of her fingers ever so slightly, and that’s pretty awesome for a quadriplegic.
When I met her, Summer proudly showed me how she could bend and flex her wrists. And I said to her, “Wow, that’s wonderful, I mean that’s great, and you have every reason to hope big that you’ll get back more. People who are spinal-cord injured within the first year can regain a lot,” I told her.
Well, there were some people standing around us, looking on with great interest and curiosity. I mean, this woman and I had to look a little odd. Here we were, both in wheelchairs, quadriplegics, both very significantly paralyzed with absolutely no use of our legs or feet. We can’t feel in our midsections, we’ve got limited arm movement, and no real use of our hands, sitting in our wheelchairs, knowing full well that the bulk of our paralysis is permanent, and yet we were thrilled at the fact that her wrist could move an eensy-weensy little bit, barely perceptible but, sure enough, you could see that joint flex and bend. And we were ecstatic—it was as though the dreadful reality that 90% of our body was paralyzed didn’t matter. It wasn’t important. It did not figure into the equation.
And you know what? It didn’t. Sometimes you have to look at the glass half-full rather than half-empty. No, I take that back. Sometimes there’s only a few drops in the glass and, hey, you’ve got to think, “There’s something in there; isn’t that wonderful? It could be empty, but there’s something to rejoice about!”
Summer does have every reason to hope that she’ll get back more return in her hands this first year of her injury—and it will be wonderful if she does. It’ll be a cause for even greater rejoicing. But if she does not, if Summer does not get back more use of her hands or arms, I do believe this young woman will still be content. Contentment is realizing that God has already given her everything she needs for her present happiness. Let me say that again. For you, today, God has already given you everything you need for your present happiness; and that should be the basis for your contentment. It is the wise person who does not grieve for the things he does not have, but rejoices over the things he does have. Summer has learned, and is learning, the lesson that Fanny Crosby, that saint of old who was blind, once wrote. She said, “O what a happy soul am I! Although I cannot see, I am resolved that in this world contented I will be; how many blessings I enjoy that other people don’t! To weep and sigh because I’m blind, I cannot, and I won’t.”
What is that small thing you have? I’d like to hear about it today, because that small thing carries far more weight than all the great things you have lost. Why? Because that small thing is everything you need for your present happiness. It is your touchstone of contentment, and I’d like to hear what that is. So take a minute and tell me on Facebook or go over to my radio page today at joniradio.org; and as you post your comment, thanking God for that small ability in your life, let it be a written witness, okay, a declaration of your contentment that God has given you all that you need for your present happiness. Together, let’s celebrate the glass half-full on my Facebook page or at joniradio.org.
© Joni and Friends