Our family lives on 150 acres in rural West Virginia. We raise an enormous garden, free-range chickens, rabbits, and cats galore. We currently only have five cats, which are kept for their friendship as much as for their mousing abilities. God has given me many learning experiences here on this beautiful country acreage. Here is one farmyard lesson that will tug at your heart as it did mine.

Just this afternoon, my youngest daughter and I were out gathering the eggs, feeding the rabbits, and enjoying the sunshine when I threw the chickens three stale ice cream cones to munch on. The first thing that happened was that Rocky, the rooster, came to the food source, checked it out, and made a deep-throated call to his harem of hens to indicate that it was time to come and eat. When the hens arrived, he pecked at the cones, breaking bits of them off. He didn't gobble them up, and he continued to call the hens and motion with his head to the food he had found. The hens came running and greedily ate the cone fragments. Rocky even “hand” fed the hens bits and pieces of the cones, all the while still repeating his deep sounds and guarding the food from the other roosters and their harems with a little strutting dance that quarantines his hens in a loose sort of way.

The hens are always quick to come, and they always come with a good attitude. Not once have I ever seen a hen complain at the food that has been provided. She doesn’t turn up her beak and strut away. She is content with what her rooster provides. He will even chase down bugs, kill them with his beak, then call his hens and feed them when they arrive. The rooster provides, and the hen accepts with the meek and quiet, cackling spirit that indicates contentment in a chicken. She doesn’t complain, “This tastes nasty. I wanted grasshoppers; not stale cone fragments.” Contentment is her lifestyle--a lifestyle of bugs!

God’s Word should always be the reference point in these lessons He brings into our lives. Hebrews 13:5 states, “Let your conversation [way of life] be without covetousness [greedy, not obsessed with getting more material things]; and be content with such things as ye have [like bugs!]; for He hath said, ‘I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.’”

I Timothy 6:6 states “But godliness with contentment is great gain.” Contentment is defined here as sufficiency.

Philippians 4:11 states “Not that I speak in respect of want; for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.”

God is my contentment, my sufficiency in all areas of my life. We all know this but, do we allow Him to be?

Oh, wretched woman that I am. I desire so much to be content in all areas of my life. One area I have recently been struggling with is finances. Why? I am still struggling with the feminist ideologies that were so ingrained in me during my formative years. I believe that my husband is the provider for our family finances. He recently returned from a 15-month tour of duty in Iraq and will be unemployed in one more paycheck. With this news I began planning in my head that if I substitute taught in April and May, I could make $90 a day compared to his $70 a day in construction. I theorized that he could stay home with the girls and catch up, and I could go make the money for two months and still get the garden planted. The Holy Spirit quietly prompted my heart/spirit in the midst of these silly thoughts, reminding me that I need to be content with whatever my husband makes, just like my hens are content with what the rooster provides. No matter how little or great the provision is, I can let God worry about the difference and “employ” myself in the home in matters of the thrifty kind.  I can cook from scratch, garden, sew, line dry the laundry, and other little things that help to keep the spending down within our level of income.

I need to be content with my bodily make up, my husband, my children, the amount of children we have, where I live, what I drive, what I eat, what I wear, what I have to spend or not to spend. Contentment brings joy. Covetousness brings anger, dissatisfaction and fractured relationships.

Realizing and repenting of my lack of contentment has been a great relief to me, because my duty and my greatest desire is to be at home doing the things that matter most in this life and the next. Spending my time training the girls, teaching them many things they will need to know for this life and about the one to come. And, most importantly, I need to be living an example on how to be content with life and all the aspects thereof.