Woman to Woman Conference: Contentment

The first workshop I attended this last Saturday during the Woman to Woman Conference at Corban University was called Contentment, taught by Anne Jeffers. Here's a brief description of the breakout session from the brochure:

Often a student will say, "I can't wait until I graduate and begin really living." If it isn't graduation, retirement, vacation or the weekend, it is something else for which we are waiting. How can we learn to be content in the season of life in which we live? Contentment is a learned virtue, and this session will address the process.

Doesn't that "season of life" idea fit in so well with this blog? I met Mrs. Jeffers last semester when I went to a few of the Sunday School classes her husband teaches at Bethany Baptist Church. She is so sweet!

This was a fun workshop, and it was definitely pertinent to my life--contentment is something I really need to work on! It's not that I don't have plenty of things to be thankful for, because I most certainly do! But I have materialistic tendencies as well as a constant eagerness for future activities that hinder contentment.

Mrs. Jeffers shared a lot of wonderful verses, ideas, and quotes with us about contentment and all that it entails. Here are some of the notes I wrote down:

• Contentment--a willingness to be satisfied with God's provision.

• If I can get my wants closer to my needs, I'll be a rich woman.

• Note the connection between contentment, gratitude, and generosity.

• Hebrews 13:5
  

Here are some tips she shared for changing the way we think:

• Be aware of the snowball effect of your thinking. (In other words, how do you start your day? What do you think about the first thing in the morning, and how does that lead to other thoughts, whether negative or positive?)

• Do one thing at a time.
  

• Live this day as if it were your last.

Not necessarily easy things to do, but these are definitely good things to work on and to remember!

At the end of the session, Mrs. Jeffers gave us some journal pages so we could write down what we were thankful for. She also had us take some daily calendar pages with various ideas of what we can be grateful for. I have to say, of the two pages I took with lists on them, one of my favorites was:

officers in dress uniform

OK, is there any woman who isn't thankful for that? ;)

Overall I enjoyed the workshop, and it offered some great perspectives for me. Contentment can involve being content with the things we have been given, which are only temporary--something I hope the Contentment Reading Challenge will remind me of!

But contentment is an attitude that doesn't involve just things, but also circumstances. God has placed each one of us in a specific place in time while we are in this world, and only in the present can we do anything--the past is gone and (as Anne Jeffers noted) "tomorrow is God's, not ours."

May we grow in contentment and live each day and each moment He gives us for Him!