I really want eggs. Fresh, pastured eggs. I am currently paying for them every week at the farmer's market and am soooo going to miss them this winter. I had read on Weed 'Em And Reap (one of my two favorite blogs!) - and this is with GMO and soy-free feed - it still costs less than $2/dozen. Folks, that's crazy cheap for pastured eggs, nonetheless GMO-free. So what this all translates to is that I want to own chickens.
Enter husband mentioned in the title of this blog. We live on a good sized yard in a hamlet, (yard is more than enough for a large-sized dog). However, said husband does not want chickens in this yard. Doesn't want the smell, the care, the poop. I'm not sure I can blame him - we'd have to keep the coop right on top of the house due to zoning restrictions in our town. Our girls run around our backyard often without shoes. How would this work with chickens running around? I work full time from home, go to school, will be leading a bible study and the fall is Operation Christmas Child time (I'm a Relay Center Coordinator). His concern is that I will not have the time to feed them, clean their coops weekly and gather the eggs. And anything else that the chickens might require.
Put these two issues together and I am frustrated. It was irritating even just to type it! I'm not angry at my husband (he's shown more than a time or two that he abounds in the carefulness, self-control and wisdom God did not bestow upon me). I like that my girls run around without care back there. I am strapped for time many-a-days.
What this leads to is such a sense of discontent. I want more land. I want a house that can entertain 20 people in the living area. I want my chickens. I want the time to grow things. I want to have my own goats for milk. I have spent most of my adult life wishing for the next stage - when I struggled with getting pregnant, I just wanted to be pregnant. When I got pregnant, I just wanted to have the baby. (Well, maybe that's not so much to do with a spirit of discontent but more normal pregnancy feelings.) When I had the baby, I spent most of the first year just wishing and waiting for the next stage because the pitfalls of the current stage were irritating. We didn't own a home, but lived in an apartment. We so longed to own a home. We spent the first 7 years of our married life pushing and looking for a house... now, here I am, with a job that more than pays the bills, allows for a home that I prayed for for seven years, and I am discontent. I am greedy and I want a bigger house with more land.
Enter blog entry from another favorite blogger (I am just smitten with how your interweaves homemaking, homesteading, her love of Jesus, love of husband and babies all into one blog!), Shaye over at the Elliott Homestead. She wrote this wonderful post a couple of weeks ago about being discontent with homesteading and I cannot shake it.
Maybe I will get more land someday to raise chickens and goats. Maybe someday I'll have the time to care for them, and farm like nobody's business. But when I'm crossing the judgment seat - although I know I'm already sealed to be with God for eternity - I'll still be held accountable. Did I love Jesus and did I love others? What did I do with what He gave me?
God has given me so much, and instead of being determined to turn it back into service, I am clutching onto it and feeling sorry for myself that I don't have more. I think God is trying to teach this heart contentment, and that I must be willing to give up all the tangible blessings and not bury my talents in the sand in fear of losing those tangible blessings or that I won't get to do what I want to do (like goats).
God will give me the strength the endure whatever He allows, even if it means never getting what I want. "Actually, I don’t have a sense of needing anything personally. I’ve learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I’m just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I’ve found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am." (Philippians 4:11-13, The Message)
P.S. Dear Husband made it into the title of this post because it is him who has been God's mouthpiece to me lately. ;-) (And I mean that in ONLY in sincere affection to him!)
