Now as a few-months-shy-of-twenty teen you’re all probably reading the title of my post and thinking “What the heck does she know about contentment?”

Well. It’s not very easy being a college student who actually wants the career she’s studying for. It’s not easy being the youngest of seven kids when all your best friends are marrying your brothers, leading to the coupling and giggling and disgusting girl things that make me want to vomit. Like cuddling. Who came up with cuddling anyway? I digress. It’s not easy being a severe introvert and still living with the parentals at 20(especially when I was dead set on moving out right when I turned 18). It’s not easy having a heart for the nations but no means of getting there.

Did you know that no matter how “rich” a person is, they never see themselves as rich. I went to school with a bunch of rich kids and they all said “we’re not rich, those kids down south are rich.” and the kids down south say “We’re not rich, those kids over east are rich.” I say “Oh we’re not rich, those people at east and south are rich.” But people who grew up downtown are saying “Wow, Grace is so rich.” This isn’t isolated to my experience, there are studies that show that it doesn’t matter where on the social class totem pole an individual is, they’re always looking at the next person up and saying “Oh no, I’m not rich, that person is.”

I’m not rich. I work 20 hours a week in order to pay tuition to work another 20 hours a week in order to graduate from nursing school with a degree that says I can work 50 hours a week. I live with my parents, I drive a junky car, I work three jobs, I barely sleep, I barely eat, I am definitely not rich.

And yet I am. I am one of the richest people on the face of the planet.

The secret to contentment is thanks given to the one who deserves it.

I go to college. I know what I want to be when I leave college. I have guaranteed admission to my dream nursing school provided I keep my GPA up. I have the tenacity to keep my GPA up. My parents put up with me. I don’t have to pay rent. I haven’t been kicked out of my parents house because of my snotty, stressed out, childish, dead-week behavior. I’m already working in the field I want to be in. I love my job. I really love my job. My two jobs are the direct provision of my heavenly father who gives me exactly what I need. I have a heavenly father who keeps me away from things that I want, but would harm me in the long run.  I am the bride of one who is capable of fulfilling every desire. I am the bride of one who desires to fulfill my every desire. I belong to the Healer. I belong to the Forgiver. I belong to the Lover. I belong to the One who gives rest. I can hold the hand that holds the world…

Yeah, I’m single. I don’t care. Yeah, I’m still living at home. So what? Yeah I don’t ever sleep. I can sleep when I’m dead. Yeah I might fail those finals I have. Yeah I might die in a plane crash. Yeah I might never hold my own kids or walk down the aisle. But who cares? I am so rich. Why would I begrudge a few coins when I’m Smaug in his dragon cave?

A final thought: Why are you even discontented? Is it because you desire something good, or is it because there’s a sin in your life that you aren’t giving over to God? Perhaps the desire for a spouse is actually lust. Perhaps the hatred for your job is actually pride. Perhaps the reason why you aren’t happy living with your parents is because you refuse to forgive. Think about it.

“I don’t like Doctor Who because the special effects are so bad and the plot is so predictable and the monsters are so hokey.”

“I don’t listen to Nickelback because their sounds is so mainstream.”

You all call them hipsters, but I think this type of snobbery goes beyond hipster…. It’s intellectual cancer that steals joy.

There’s nothing that deflates my happy balloon quite like someone criticizing something that was created for the sole purpose of being enjoyed. So you didn’t enjoy it. Okay. Well I did. Your supposed smartness didn’t do anything except rob you of joy. And maybe me a little bit too.

Remember when you were a kid and everything was exciting? The neighborhood park felt like Worlds of Fun and the local walmart was the size of the Mall of America? You could sit and watch Arthur or Star Wars or The Lion King for hours without even thinking about plot formation or character development or how good the animation/special effects are.

Those were the good days. The days of joy.

I ran into this when I watched The Lion King at the age of 15. I had already read Hamlet(and had been told that The Lion King is similar to Hamlet) so the whole time I was comparing the two stories. On top of that I’m not a huge animal fan. The end result was me wasting two hours of my life on a kids movie that I was too snobbish for. Instead of enjoying the movie I was critiquing it. My only comment at the end was “Hamlet is better. Nobody dies in The Lion King…”

I get a lot of crap because of that.

In How I Met Your Mother, when Barney and Nora are dating it comes out that Nora doesn’t like Ewoks. Barney freaks out thinking that Nora was over the age of 12 when Star Wars came out, which would mean she is 37 and Nora lied to him. He later finds out that she didn’t watch star wars until she was older and she really is 29.

Nora is a snob.

Children are too smart to be above things. If they’re excited about something they let it show. If they enjoyed something they say so. They are pure and honest and untainted by expectations of what something should be like. Untainted by reality.

Jesus talks about how the Kingdom of God belongs to child-like people. People who come to Him honestly and openly.

I think in my relationship with God I have a history of being a spiritual grown up. Of being too responsible and mature to come running to Jesus. In every day life it’s all well and good to be responsible and mature. I guess. But Jesus longs for something different. Not for the snobbish, intellectual enjoyment of Him, but the childlike glee of untainted joy.

We’ve lost that. We’re all a bunch of snobs that are too grown up for Jesus. Too caught up in our theology and science. Too stuck in the issues to just revel in the person of God. Take a moment and revel, folks. Take back joy.

-C. S. Lewis The Great Divorce

I love to read. I really truly do. I love beginning a new book, I love the feeling of being lost in a book. I love the contentedness I feel at the end of a good book when all is right with the world. I love reading.

Historically reading has been an escape for me. If I’m bored with my life I can read an adventure and all of a sudden life isn’t boring any more. If I’m discontented with my life I can read a book about someone who has a life I would rather have and for the time that I’m trapped in those pages I’m a different person. I can escape the misery of my own life and trade it for fiction.

The problem with this type of reading is that once the book is over I always find myself more miserable than I was to start out. So to fill the hole that was only widened by my venture into book #1, I desperately seek book #2. And 2 becomes 20 becomes 200 and I am left with a really big itch that I can scratch no more.

And I find myself asking this question: Would I rather itch than not?

I have found that discontent is a sin that 100% of human beings struggle with. The devil feeds on discontent. I’m discontent in my singleness, I’m going to sell myself short. I’m discontent in my wealth, I’m going to be a greedy greedy-face. I’m discontent with life, I’m going to end it.

I’m discontent with life so I’m going to escape into a book.

I’ve been convicted a lot recently about being content in my circumstances. A direct result of that is a dramatic decrease in the amount of fiction I read. I try to get back into it, I really do. But books become less appealing when I stop comparing my life to them. Conversely, I hate how I feel after reading certain types of books. I find myself desiring a life that isn’t mine and when the book is over I itch!

My reading nightstand has probably four non-fiction books and two fiction books on it at the moment. I’m trying to read the fiction. I really am. But oddly my tastes have changed. I don’t really like crawling into bed with mosquitoes. I’d rather not itch.

We’ve all read these words. We create in our minds these images of crazy people praying loudly on the street corners. Guys in funky hats praying in a crowd and peeking a look to see who’s watching and saying “Ooh look at that man in a funky hat, he must be such a good man, he’s praying in public!”..

Nowadays we don’t have synagogues or really even street corners. We don’t have people who regularly go out in public and pray. That isn’t something that happens in modern America. So what the heck does this passage mean?

The overarching question is this: What do the hypocrites do? Who aren’t we to be like?

To answer this question we have to figure out where our synagogues and street corners are. I have a suggestion. Social media.

This is where everyone’s lives intersect. You can find literally anyone with only a few exceptions on the internet. My mom has a facebook…. Holy gee whiz. So basically if you were to show off to people you would post it on facebook or twitter or instagram or… your blog…

At this point I’m going to go a little off the beaten track and talk about Jesus. Jesus isn’t saying “Don’t pray in public”. Obviously it’s recorded in the bible that Jesus prays in front of people. He prayed while hanging on the cross. That wasn’t exactly a private moment. So either Jesus is a hypocrite or there’s more to this than merely praying in public.

It comes down to motive. The hypocrites pray in public to receive the praise and recognition of men while we are commanded to go into a figurative closet and pray to an audience of one.

I, for one, am guilty.

It’s so easy when you’re praying in front of people to get caught up in “I’m gonna say this and this and this because all those people will them ‘hmmmm’ and ‘yessss’ and ‘amen’.” And when people agree with your prayers it feels good because you feel like you’re such a big, good christian.

You hypocrite!

So parting questions that I want answers to in the comments:

1: What is the difference between hypocritical praying in public and biblical praying in public?

2: In what ways can we avoid being like the hypocrites?

3: How ought we respond to the hypocrites?

I read this verse over my early morning breakfast(Not to be confused with second breakfast. Second breakfast happens during a 15 minute break at work.) and I was spiritually backhanded to the face… For two reasons.

1. “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists...”

In order to please God you must do these two things… first believe that he exists. Say whaaaaa? I never reflect on the fact that it pleases God that I simply acknowledge his existence.

2. “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”

Yesterday I was praying on the way to work(after breakfast but before second breakfast) and I was praying for my friends and making a monumental step in my relationship with God. As I was praying I found myself asking God for two things. One unselfish and the other quite selfish. This selfish request has been an idol in my heart for the majority of my life. In praying I quoted the above verse(not knowing where it was found) and almost jabbed my finger in God’s chest “You promised!…..”

And in that moment my heart softened and I found myself praying “But God, if I had to give up this selfish desire that you might be glorified in the unselfish…. I would be totally cool with that.”

And in that moment one more idol was torn down in the heart of Grace Menter.

So this morning when I read that verse my mind went automatically back to my hasty, desperate, pleading prayer that was trying to cheat God out of a blessing…. And a profound question was raised in my mind.

Do I believe that God rewards those who earnestly seek him?

Not only this but it says that without faith that God does such it’s impossible to please him! I was pleading in the car and at that point God was probably like “Why are you begging? I’m insulted that you feel like you have to ask twice. I am not amused. You should know that I want to give you these things. Why don’t you know this?”

So often I come to God and I’m like “God you can do this so you should! Because you should!” when, if I’m interpreting correctly, I should be coming with a different kind of confidence: the confidence of right relationship. Like a kid would ask a favor from their dad. “God, I know that we are locked in a relationship centered around mutual earnest pursuit and because of this I know that you want to give me something nice. Like maybe some diamonds or something. Well can I hint about what I want?”

And the great part is that God rewards himself and rewards me at the same time because when you are locked in earnest pursuit your desires become the same as those of the one you are pursuing.

Holy double win, batman!

Trivial: not momentous. e.g. What you had for lunch(hopefully), who won the superbowl, how much wood a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood,…

My decision to cut my hair….

Granted I haven’t cut my hair in four years and it WAS down to my natural waist, but let’s be real…. Who cares if my hair is long or short. Well aside from me and my future sister-in-law….

I’ve been thinking about cutting my hair ever since the beginning of March when my sister got married. She said “Nope, you aren’t chopping your hair off before my wedding!” So I didn’t do it then…. Well lately I’ve been on an Elizabeth McGovern kick and she has the exact hair I wanted…. so my desires to cut my hair were once again aroused.

Tim proposed to Joanna, who was in fact the person I entrusted with the task of smacking me in the face if I ever seriously thought about cutting my hair. Well considering she will be marrying my brother I asked her if I could cut my hair before her wedding. She gave her blessing instead of smacking me like I’d asked her to do. I agonized for about two weeks and finally this morning… well…

This happened.

Do I like it? I don’t know. Do I regret it? I really don’t know. Do I miss my long hair? Yes. Does it make me almost want to start sobbing when I see those ponytails that some child will eventually wear? YES! A thousand times yes! And I’m selfish. I want to attach those back to my own hair. But I can’t. It’s done…. Oh well….. it’ll grow back.

I’m getting a fresh start without damage. I should be happy. Well I am. Kind of.

To set the scene, in biology class I had heard from a friend that she was going to be singing at an open mike night at a local coffee shop that night. I’d heard her hum in class and was wild with curiosity to hear her voice so I said I would go hear her sing. I took advantage of the opportunity and texted my almost sister-in-law Joanna and asked if she wanted to go with me since we’d been to the coffee shop a few times together and hadn’t spent much time together. So it all worked out and we showed up at the shop…

We ordered our coffee(The term coffee is used loosely here. It was actually a naked smoothie and cinnamon roll in my case and hot chocolate in Joanna’s.) We had been sitting for a grand total of five minutes before this old man sat at the piano and started playing loud, obnoxious music(the term music here used loosely as well). It was so loud, raucous and odious that we couldn’t really hear each other for distraction. His harsh, slurred tone diverted our attention.

He ended his first song and prefaced his next song with “I wrote this song as a response to a misunderstanding that conservatives have.” yammer yammer yammer. the song is lashing out at conservatives.

This song went through bible stories like Lazarus begging at the rich man’s gate and the rich young ruler who was told to sell all he had and give it to the poor and it jabbed at conservatives saying “How can you say ‘I don’t want to pay for your health care’ when Jesus told you to take care of the poor.”

Joanna got riled up and I rolled my eyes. This man clearly didn’t know what the bible said, given those stories in the bible were, put simply and not going too in depth, intended to show the folly of putting material things in the place of God and the gentleman(term used loosely) belting at the piano was attributing the exact opposite meaning to them.

We suffered in relative silence. For my part I didn’t know what to say. I was baffled. Is this man really demonizing conservatives(ME!) in a public place? He doesn’t know who is listening! He doesn’t know how this will go over! I just sat there with ears bleeding, hoping his fifteen minutes would end soon. 3/4 of the way through my cinnamon roll the “I don’t wanna pay for your healthcare!” song ended and he said these words.

“All due respect to the original writers of the original hymn ‘Nothing but the Blood’ but I revamped the lyrics”

Joanna and I look at each other steely eyed with jaws clenched as he begins to disrespectfully sing nothing but the blood with different lyrics. Lyrics about liberal agenda.

I lasted ten seconds before I scooped up the rest of my cinnamon roll and Joanna and I rose from our seats.

Now I don’t know who this lady was who was sitting next to us, but she was obviously in some sort of relationship with the man at the piano. She’d been glancing over at me the whole time this was happening and as resolutely headed for the door, she grabbed my arm and feebly asked if I wanted to see her Christmas craft that she was making.

Rage, most likely of the unrighteous sort, filled me and I didn’t even acknowledge her. I dumped my cinnamon roll and stormed out after Joanna. For the next ten minutes Joanna and I vented our anger at this man.

How dare he.

How DARE he!

You can sing your liberal agenda all you want, but leave the hymns alone. Leave Jesus’ blood out of it. You can blaspheme my ideology, You can blaspheme me personally, but DO NOT blaspheme even the mere thought of my Jesus.

As we saw this man and the woman who tried to grab me leave the coffee shop we went back in and resumed our conversation. Talking and relaxing as best friends are want to do. My friend Shannon showed up a bit later and we realized it’s a really small world.

When the time came for Shannon to sing she was really nervous. For her first song her voice was quiet and her music tentative. She sang a song about God’s love and how God is love.

I have never seen so many people so quiet. A peace just settled on the room and it struck me how different Shannon and that awful man are.

The atmosphere in the coffee shop when the old man was singing was rowdy, loud, chaotic. The sound of twenty people trying their hardest to continue on with life despite what they’re hearing. But when Shannon sang I was surrounded by the sound of thirty people(more people had come in between the two) holding their breath, craning their necks, trying their hardest to hear this beautiful young woman with a beautiful voice singing about the beautiful love of God. The contrast was very stark in my mind. God brings peace. He quiets the crowd. He makes you hold your breath. He makes you press pause on life and just…. rest….

He brings peace and contentment and joy in a way that no political activism, right wing or left, can.

To be continued….

Granted I’m a little behind the curve on putting my two cents in, but my views on yolo have only just solidified. As in today. I was walking over a rather large bridge gazing up at the most beautiful thing created by mankind(memorial stadium. What a good little husker I am) and thinking about yolo and Jesus when it all clicked into place. So now I’m telling the bloggosphere about it. It’s my reward for finishing my biology paper. aren’t I the most pathetic person in the world?

For the last year of my life whenever I’m faced with a question of morality I’ve been asking myself the question “In twenty years will I regret not doing this?” From senior campout to senior skip day to shoplifting to underaged drinking my question has been “Will I regret this?”

Well this weekend it became shockingly clear to me that I don’t regret some of the decisions I have made because I have friends who made the opposite decision and I’m really glad I’m not in the same place they are. But as I got to thinking about where I’m at and where my friends are at I realized that it doesn’t matter what I do in this life to give myself pleasure. None of it is going to satisfy me.

And now all you super mature Christians out there are groaning and saying “COME ON GRACE! It took you how long to figure that out???”

Seriously people, I thought I was doing myself a favor by getting slightly into the YOLO mindset. Like “Oh the stories I will tell about my young and carefree days!”

Well the truly poetic thing I thought of today was that for me it may be true that I only live once, but that life lasts for an eternity. The decision I make today for immediate pleasure could get in the way of my eternal pleasure.

So now my question is “Will this give me eternal pleasure or will it potentially hurt eternity?”

Not that my making an unwise decision is going to bar me from heaven and strip me of my title of heir, not at all! But an unwise decision has the potential to turn me away from God thereby glorifying God in my own demise instead of by grace.

And no, I do not at the current moment believe in once saved always saved. I do in fact believe that (theoretically) tomorrow I could turn my back on God and walk away from his grace. In all actuality, the chances of that actually happening are slim, but if I were to make some unwise decisions and start compromising in the name of YOLO who knows where I’d end up. I don’t want to touch that vortex with a 9 million foot pole. No temporary pleasure of this world is worth eternity.

So I walk the line. Call me a prude, call me boring, call me what you will. When the desires of my flesh are laid bare I’m not any different than your average whore. The difference is who I have chosen to be, and more importantly who God has made me.

The response?

“Well I’m a bad Catholic, but I believe…”

And I listened to Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ascension paraphrased. nothing about the virgin Mary, nothing about the pope, nothing about images of Jesus or anything.

I’ve decided in order to get the lowdown about those things I should ask a good Catholic. do you agree?

“RAAAAWWWWRRRRR I HAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE THE NOTEBOOK!!!!!!!”

There. It’s out.

Or hearing people talk about gay rights.

“RAWWWWRRRR STOP BEING SO CONDESCENDING!!!!! I DON’T CARREEEEE!!!!!!”

Or reading a blog and someone is raging and they decide to duplicate the silent letters. Like seriously, how do you say “CARREEEEEEEE”

Let’s all just pause a bit after saying care(holding out the r a little longer than usual) to symbolize the extra silent E’s.

Or frickin’ friends getting boyfriends before you.

Politics in general…

I just can’t handle it anymore. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my posts about politics are practically nonexistent now.. it’s because I can’t handle it. I get a angry on the inside and want to change the subject. Even in my own brain I can’t handle it. I hardly ever think about politics these days. I don’t read political articles, I don’t watch political movies, I don’t talk about it. I can’t handle it.

Also, the catholic institution. Can’t stand it. Can’t even talk about it. no. Not happening. I’m reading a biography of Martin Luther. Fills me with rage. I assume the modern catholic church isn’t as corrupt as back then but….

Now that I’ve complained(another thing that angers me…) for a whole 300 words I’m going to leave you with a good thought.

Life is messy and complicated. And you would think that killing people would make them like you, but it doesn’t… it just makes them dead.