Contentment on the Journey

I have been reading the book by The Resolution for Women, by author Priscilla Shirer. (I highly recommend reading this, by the way!)  I have gotten about half-way through the book because I am actually taking the time to read, study and learn from each section.  This book really focuses (so far at least) on being content....being satisfied.  I don't know if it is the way the book is written, if it is just that I so badly need to apply this concept to my life, or if God is just using this book to nourish an area in my life that was deficient, but I am LOVING this book!   I find myself rewriting paragraph after paragraph in my journal.... principle after principle that I don't want to forget.... and then often writing my own thoughts down with it. 

So far this part of our journey has had me by the hospital bed of my sweetheart for 73 days.  Many of those 73 days I have watched the man that I love with my whole heart fight for his life.  How am I supposed to be content, satisfied even, during this time?  It was almost offensive to my brain to consider that I should be content!   Don't I have every reason not to be content?

One of the first things I have learned is that contentment is a choice!  It does not just happen automatically - you have to learn it.  You have to practice it.  In the book that I mentioned above it states, "Contentment wasn't some unique gift the apostle Paul had been given.  It was a skill he had chosen and adopted, then had mastered and applied to his tumultuous life experience".  Philippians 4:11 states, ".....for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content".  I had never thought about the fact that contentment had to be a choice.  Being content was Paul's secret weapon.  Wow, what a secret weapon!  Contentment is liberating... freeing. 

I wonder if part of the purpose of this phase of my (our) journey to teach me to be content? 

2 Cor 12:9-10 - And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.