Being content and cute kittens

Well, we're a little under a month away from finding out the gender of our little peanut! I've already picked out some neutral colors for the nursery (light green and yellow) and have the two paint colors I like best narrowed down. So painting the nursery will be a fun project that I very much look forward to.

We've been attending the church in Bainbridge Island that we liked and have really started to enjoy being there. It's a good-sized church, which makes it a little difficult to get involved in, but the music and sermons are wonderful. The sermon this morning was on "chasing glory" and was very convicting. It went along well with a book my mom recently gave me called Calm My Anxious Heart. It's all about being content with what the Lord has given you, no matter the circumstances. It's one of those books that makes you realize just how self-centered and ungrateful you are. We all struggle with coveting different things based on our interest or needs at the time. I struggle with wanting pretty things for our apartment, more little pets to take care of, more time with my husband when he's at work, a job I love to keep me busy, etc. Andrew, on the other hand, struggles with wanting things like a new phone, a higher rank, a nicer car, more time to spend doing things he loves, etc. We both want more money, to be closer to friends and family, the honeymoon that we never really got - it's fairly easy to come up with a ridiculously long list of things we both want. Some are silly little things and some are important things like financial stability. But the main message God has put in my life recently is that your own circumstances are not supposed to dictate your satisfaction with life. This book I've been reading makes it clear that being content is a state of the heart.

The man who preached the sermon this morning has been fostering a little baby boy for the past few months. He said he and his wife's philosophy was to have one more kid than you're comfortable with to force yourself to rely on God. He was half-joking, but I loved that. We're always supposed to be challenged by God so that we can learn to trust Him completely. If you are completely content, it should not be because of your circumstances because even if they are great, circumstances can change in a second. There are so many people that have demonstrated contentedness for me over the years, but the first people that always jump to mind are my teachers in high school. I got to watch them firsthand for four years and admired them more and more as time went on. They work harder than many people I know and do it with a smile. They get very little thanks or recognition and while they should be getting paid like NFL players, they are definitely not. I never stop admiring how much they care about their students and their willingness to always work around the clock. What a great example of being content where the Lord has placed you.

So, since I don't have much of an update on what's happening in our lives right now, there's what's been on my mind. Here's a picture of our new kitten, Winnie, hanging out on the changing table next to Philly. They're best buddies.