Complainer

"Meaningless, Meaningless...Everything is meaningless!" Ecclesiastes 1:2

Isn't that an optimistic statement with which to start your day? Not! It was what I started my day with today, though. And then it really got me thinking about complaining. "Am I a complainer?" I asked a dear friend. "I don't want to be a complainer," I whined. Oh...I realized quickly that then I was complaining about being a complainer. Ugh!

I think what I've come up with is this. This life brings complaints. It is what we do with them that makes all the difference. Do we take them to every person in our path, or do we lay them one by one before the Lord. Sometimes I think it is good and right to share struggles with trusted ones. I know God has brought me much encouragement through that. I guess we just have to be careful that we're not causing someone else's gaze to be stooped down here, rather than fixed up there.

It also got me thinking...what truly brings meaning?

We are born homesick. We long for an existence, a quality of life or a settledness and satisfaction which we've never directly experienced, but which we know exists, or at least ought to. We live in something like a life-long culture shock. Our response to this fact sets the course of our lives. ~James C. Wilhoit

Being a nurse, a wife, a mother, a sister, a daughter, a friend...all of these roles have brought some kind of great meaning to my life. But none of them truly satisfy. I'm realizing that though there is blessing to be found in everything, true satisfaction can only come from the Lord. If I am looking to anything else to fill me at a given moment, to make me "feel good," then I am ultimately worshiping an idol. Ouch!

Father God, you are my filling, my meaning. You are my true home. Forgive me for complaining. Help me to walk through this world with open hands...seeing what you have for me here, following your tender lead, but not grasping for anything to truly hold onto except for YOU.