I took my own advice. I was at the beach last week. For the first couple of days, my daughter and I played in the surf a lot. We stood about waist deep and repeatedly dared the waves to knock us over. We would shout in victory when we could not be moved and laugh loudly and mourn salty, sea-water mouth when a wave would win. As a child, she was never one to wade in past her knees for fear Jaws would pop up, mangle her, and she would bleed out on the sand. I know, that’s gory. It is not, however, far from her truth. She is prone to crippling anxiety. It has stolen so much from her.

As I stood there in the surf, I was overcome with a feeling. It took some time to name it. I was feeling so many things in those moments. At one point, warm, white, churned water from a breaking wave surrounded me and I realized what I was feeling was pure contentment. I was happily playing in the ocean with my recently launched youngest child. She was happily doing something I would have never thought possible. I could not help but flashback to times with my children when I was certain they would never regain any of the ground they lost from their lives before us. Playing in the surf is such a simple thing. In that moment, though, my daughter won a marathon in my eyes. I realized, too, just how many marathons she has won in the last 13 years. And God leaned down and whispered in my ear, “There is nothing I can’t redeem.”

When we met the children that would ultimately become our own, they came with no physical possessions. They were heavy, however, with emotional baggage. Had those bags physically manifested they would have crushed our entire family. Many times, over the years, I felt like they were crushing us in their unseen state. Our lives took shape around that baggage. What we did or did not do was often dictated by those bags. All four of us, in essence, were held captive by the actions taken by their biological parents. That fact has always bred discontent for me. I always pined for the lives I felt my children deserved. They never asked for the heaviness they were forced to carry.

Contentment is not something I feel often. We are all on a steady diet of discontent. We have too much and pine for even more. We stay so busy with wanting that it is easy to miss the good things that are added to our lives. For all of us, there is something that breeds discontent. How my children were treated before I met them is just one of several things for me that leaves me wanting. We all have baggage. I wish I knew where in life we are taught to be happy we must erase all the bad we have experienced.

For most of my life, I wanted to be free of my baggage while simultaneously protecting it and using it as a convenient excuse for why I could not do the things I really wanted to do. What I realized after lots of counseling is our wounds can heal, but we are left with scars. With much of the weight of the event removed, we can use what is left for good. Our former baggage and source of pain can transform to a source of strength to help someone else.

I think that is what Paul was getting at in I Corinthians 12:9-10 (CSB) where he says, “⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me. ¹⁰ So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and in difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Truth: Our experiences shape us. We have a choice to make. We can refuse help and let our wounds fester. We can let our hurts breed discontent and use them as an excuse to not meet our potential. OR, we can accept God’s sufficient grace. We can accept all of ourselves, the good, bad, and ugly, understanding we aren’t responsible for manufacturing strength. The Bible doesn’t ever ask for perfection. We don’t have to get free of our baggage. We just have to surrender it to God so He can carry the weight and heal our hurts. I have seen more good come from surrendering my hurts than I ever did while carrying them.

This week, instead of nurturing ideas that breed discontent, I commit to intentionally looking for all the good that has been added to my life and the lives around me. I commit to search for those holy moments of contentment when I can see all that He has redeemed. Who is with me?