Focusing on the Blessings

Discontentment is a feeling that can hold us captive for our entire lives. We can constantly be chasing after “the next big thing,” thinking the grass is always greener—only to find it isn’t as green as we thought. Sometimes we can even experience this with the weather seasons throughout the year. This is something brought out powerfully in the poem “Present Tense” by Jason Lehman. He starts out writing, “It was spring, but it was summer I wanted,” and then moves to each season, only wanting what comes next. But then he writes of each stage of life and finds himself wishing for the past. Finally, at the end of the poem, the author imagines himself retired and writes, “My life was over. But I never got what I wanted” (Jason Lehman, “Present Tense,” Dear Abby, Cedartown Standard, February 14, 1989, https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=365&dat=19890214&id=GfoJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=rT8DAAAAIBAJ&pg=5666,972814a). The Ten Commandments encourage us to pause, and not think about what we don’t have but rather focus on the blessings we do have.