Learning To Live With Less

When I’ve felt down in the past, I often would compare my situation to that of others that I know. Because I have so many years of experience with all types of animals, I am often asked to care for other people’s animals while they are away from home.

Many of these folks are very successful in business and have several homes. All of them are beautifully build and decorated. They often have the latest technology such as automatic sliding glass door openers, in home theatres, gigantic sound systems etc. They drive the most expensive automobiles and have the most powerful computer systems. They have everything a person could ever want as far as “things’ are concerned. By the world’s standards, these people have “made it!”

By comparison, my humble home and older car say, I “haven’t.” If I let that kind of thought spend too much time in my head I will soon be in a world of trouble. In fact, last year I was asked to spend a week at one such home caring for their animals. It was a delightful week exercising the dogs in the heated pool, cooking my meals in their state of the art kitchen, and enjoying the fruits of their success.

Upon coming home after that week I was very dissatisfied with my life. I spent the next couple of weeks irritable and touchy hardly speaking to anyone. I was deep in thought. I had come to the realization that I was a failure. The only thing I could do about it was really work hard, now to make up for lost time.

At the time I was working for a veterinary clinic not too far from home. I loved the work there caring for the patients and their owners. I had many occasions to pray with the families of very ill pets and had seen God move in mighty ways. But then I lost my focus. I became sidetracked, thinking more about how I could increase my income than how I might increase God’s kingdom.

Months went by and I worked harder and longer, doing more than my body could tolerate until one Friday morning almost a year later I awoke feeling very dizzy. When I attempted to get out of bed I found I had lost my balance. After the usual morning cup of tea I realized that my right eye wouldn’t focus clearly and the right side of my face was numb. My right arm and hand were also numb. I went to work anyway, though a sensible person would have gone to the hospital.

Things did not improve throughout the day. In fact, I now noticed that I was having problems speaking and I was unable to come up with common words that I wanted to use. Some words just ceased to make any sense at all. Numbers and dates were all a jumble. I became very concerned and spoke to the veterinarian that I worked for who offered that I had simply pinched a nerve in my neck.

I stayed through the day and when I got home after work I barely made it through the door before I was fast asleep. I spent the weekend in a deep coma-like sleep waking only to go to the bathroom. I ate nothing as I had lost my appetite and I found that I never heard the phone ringing though it was right next to the bed.

Monday morning, there was no improvement and I called my doctor’s office. The receptionist told me that it was probably Bell’s Palsy and made an appointment for me in 12 days.

By the following morning there was still no improvement and I became frightened. My oldest daughter is a nurse who works for a family practitioner 40 miles from my home. I drove to her office and sat there, wild eyed and trembling. They sent me for testing which revealed that my hard work had earned me a stroke at 46 years old. For all the work I wasn’t any more successful and I wasn’t really much better off financially. Instead I was having difficulty holding a pencil and now the right side of my face hung. The doctor forced me to quit my job, putting me in a worse situation than I was before I became dissatisfied with my life.

There is a reason that one of the Ten Commandments tells us not to covet anything that belongs to our neighbors. God doesn’t want us to have what they have. He wants us to have what is for us. His plan for our lives is perfect and he knows what will ultimately give us the greatest fulfillment. He is a good and loving Father that wants only the best for his children.

The Bible tells us that we being evil know how to give our children good gifts. How much more would he give us good gifts being perfect and knowing us in such an intimate way.

Paul tells us that he learned to be content in all things. (Phil 4:11) He had to learn this, it did not come naturally to him. But if he could do it, so can we. With God all things are possible.

Philipians 4:11-13 reads…Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am in to be content. I know how to be abased (to live humbly). I know how to abound (to live prosperously) Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

It is by divine hand that these verses would be together. Most of us would need a lot of help learning to be content when in need. I know I do. All I can say is that I thank the Lord for the stroke. Though it was frightening, I went through a whirlwind of emotions, I am now fully recovered and working on my dream…to write a book. God knows best…always. I am so grateful that my heavenly Father loves me so much that He doesn’t give me everything that I want.

As a postscript I wrote that during the writing of this I was thinking too of our precious Lord walking through his life on earth with nothing but the clothes on his back. He didn’t own a house and the only time we see in the scriptures Jesus riding a donkey, it was borrowed. He knew best to keep himself unencumbered.

As frail humans we want so much. A better car, a bigger house, designer clothes. It’s our nature to want things. But those things can change from being owned by us to us being owned by them.

Jesus was free to move about as the Father directed him. This would not have been easy with a huge mortgage and the payment on an expensive sports car. He wanted to keep things simple. He tells us that there’s a cost to discipleship. He said that the foxes have holes and the birds have nests but the son of man had no place to lay his head. Isn’t it interesting that God gave his creations the things they needed, but denied those things to himself. That’s humility.