I finished a new novel in May and the book spent the summer with an editor getting spruced. Since September I’ve been in the dreaded query process where I pitch the premise and some sample pages to dozens of literary agents in hopes of being “discovered” and getting a big publisher.

It’s soul-wearying. Painstaking. A lot like sitting at a slot machine in a casino, watching your money dwindle with every game, telling yourself to give up, but unable to stop on this off-chance that the next one will hit the jackpot.

I don’t enjoy limbo or uncertainty or waiting. I don’t think most of us particularly like having our feet suspended above the floor, unable to move forward or undo the past. But that’s where I live today: waiting for an email.

You might be waiting, too. A new job, a house of your own, a better relationship, a child to love.

I try to focus on the positive, on those things I’m not waiting for, but finding true contentment feels more elusive than a game of mind tricks.

I’ve always been captivated by Paul’s words in Philippians: “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”  (Philippians 4:11-13, NIV)

In other words, things can get as bad as they can get, they can scrape the bottom of the proverbial barrel, and there can still be rest because of his strength. It seems simple. The words are there. I understand their meaning, but the application often escapes me. I see without seeing.

I wonder sometimes if I will ever learn that secret. If I’ll someday master it or if I will be a student forever, wrestling against my own restlessness. I’ve never gone hungry. I’ve never lacked a safe place to sleep. And yet, I’m not content. I wash the ten thousandth dish of the day, forgetting the gift of parmesan-crusted chicken and a family to share it with.

It’s as if our wants adjust to our circumstances and we forever grapple for what it is currently out of reach. I never want to stop dreaming; it’s a God-given gift. But I don’t want to miss all the goodness I’m already privileged to hold. To have Christ’s strength and dismiss it as insufficient.

God, make my heart content in you. I pray this so often it should be placed in my book of Dear Life Mottos and Lessons, right next to “live and learn” and “eat a carrot before bed.”

Paul suffered and learned the secret of contentment in the darkness of prison and shipwreck and hunger. Similarly and strangely (although considerably less dramatic), the times when I’ve felt most content have also been the hardest.

A few weeks before I graduated pharmacy school, Mom’s autoimmune disorder took a bad turn and she developed a dangerous infection. As if my brain had been set to record, I can remember the emergency room and the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach when the physician said Mom’s fever was 104—double pneumonia, allergic to vancomycin, we’ll try another antibiotic. Going to bed that night, eyes on the ceiling, afraid of what tomorrow would bring.

Since Dad’s death, one of my greatest fears has been losing Mom. Of losing her voice. The ability to call and say, “My child won’t eat anything but bananas. What do I do?”

God knows my greatest fears. He is also sufficient for my greatest fears. And in those moments when death draws near and the sky goes dark, it’s as if the veil grows thin. We sense him in ways we couldn’t before. We feel our smallness and his greatness. We learn the secret of being content.

I slept that night and awoke the next morning, touched by fear but content. At rest. Reminded that he was the one driving the ship, not me.

Today, no one in my family is in danger of imminent demise. The stresses of my life are characterized by restless waiting, a fussy toddler, and an endless game of whack-a-mole with the dishes. I’m in a season of plenty, but sometimes that makes the contentment even harder. The veil becomes a blackout curtain and I feel nothing but the mundane, lulled into self-sufficiency.

I can’t force myself to be “happy,” but I can make the decision today to say, “God, you’re enough. Tomorrow you’ll be enough.”

Today I received another rejection for my manuscript, and while the feeling of failure is about as pleasurable as a cold bath in winter, I’m at peace. Because whether my future takes the shape I dream of, whether I’m given plenty or little, it will be done in his strength. And that’s the only place worth being.

In the mountains and the valleys, make my heart content in you.