By F. D. Adkins
She swipes the loose curl from her eyes and tucks it back under her tiara. Lifting the little teapot, she pours each of her guests a cup of her finest white grape juice. Her mom had made her get white grape juice because someone at the last tea party spilled the purple stuff on the beige rug. She was not sure if it had been Mrs. Hopper, her stuffed bunny with long floppy ears, or Mr. Barry, a handknitted teddy bear that her aunt gave her when she was a baby.
As she fills the cups, she notices that the white grape juice looks more like real tea anyway. She adjusts her tiara again and then reaches for the plate of chocolate chip cookies. Before she can even begin to serve the cookies, one of her guests apparently lacks manners because he has already lapped up everyone’s tea.
“Bailey, how rude of you!” she squints her eyes and frowns at the golden retriever. “This is not how one behaves at a tea party hosted by a princess.”
***
Quite a few years have passed, and the princess phase is a distant memory. Now, she is a teenager striving to fit in, pretending to be someone she isn’t, and searching for something or someone to fill the growing hole in her heart.
She sits on her bed looking at the designer clothes hanging in her closet. She had thought those clothes would make her fit in with the popular kids. She moves her gaze to the pile of makeup sitting on the dresser that she uses to hide the blemishes on her face. Then, her eye catches the glimpse of a sparkle on the shelf by the window, and a tear rolls down her cheek. Her little princess tiara sits next to Mr. Barry. If only I could feel like a princess again.
A tap on the door casing causes her whole body to jerk.
“I didn’t mean to startle you.” Her dad walks over to her dresser. “Why is your mirror turned to face the wall?”
She wipes the moisture from her cheek. “Oh, umm, I just don’t really like to look at myself.”
He reaches out and swipes the dust from the Bible engraved with her name laying on the edge. “How long has it been since you opened this?”
“A while, I guess.”
He carries the Bible over and sits down beside her on the bed. “You know, sweetheart, you are looking for happiness in all the wrong places. Jesus is the only one that can fill that hole in your heart.”
“What are you talking about? I mean, how do you know that I feel hollow inside?”
Her dad lifts her chin with his finger. “Because I haven’t always had Jesus, and I remember that horrible void. I remember the searching…the desperation to feel content…the longing for true happiness.” He flips open the Bible and points to John 3:16. “For God so love the world…,” he lifts his eyes to meet hers, “For God so loves you…that He gave His only begotten son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” He flips a few pages and reads, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” He lays the Bible on the bed and grasps her hand. “Jesus lay down his life for you. Nothing else can fill that void but Him.”
“Daddy, I need to get right with Jesus. Look, my Bible is covered in dust. How disappointed He must be.”
“Then you need to pray and ask Him to forgive you. Tell Him you want Him to come in your heart.”
She nods and closes her eyes. “Lord, please forgive me. Forgive me for running away. Forgive me for neglecting you. Forgive me for my sin. I want to live for You. Please come into my heart. I want to follow only You. Amen.”
Her dad stands and steps over to the little shelf. In one swift motion, he picks up the tiara and turns back to his daughter. Placing the small crown on her head, he smiles and says, “Now you are a real princess. You are a child of the King of Kings.”
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In an article in The Atlantic, “Are We Trading Our Happiness for Modern Comforts,” Arthur Brooks reports that the “lowest income quintile” spent on average twenty-two percent more on eating out in 2019 than in 2008 while the “top income quintile” spent a little less than eight percent more. Brooks goes on to say that new homes in 2016 were an average of one thousand square feet larger and had twice the living space per person than in 1973. In addition, according to The Geography of Transport Systems, households with two or more cars went from twenty-two percent in 1960 to fifty-eight percent in 2017 (“Percentage of Households by Number of Vehicles, 1960-2017”). So, Americans are living quite a bit more frivolous than they used to, but are Americans happy, and exactly what is this new lifestyle costing Americans?
A research article on Experian.com by Stephen Stolba, “Average U.S. Consumer Debt Reaches New Record in 2020,” says that the total consumer debt balance in the U.S. grew six percent from 2019 to 2020 reaching 14.88 trillion dollars.
In “Facts About Suicide,” the CDC informs that, in 2019, suicide claimed a life every eleven minutes taking a total of 47,500 lives. On top of that, the CDC reports that in 2019, 12 million people considered suicide, 3.5 million planned suicide, and 1.4 million actually made an attempt to take their own life.
These statistics reflect that this step up in lifestyle has not increased happiness or contentment and has added a huge financial burden. As Arthur Brooks states in his article in The Atlantic, “We don’t get happier as our society gets richer, because we chase the wrong things.”
Here are some verses from my Bible study on finding contentment:
- “But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.” (1 Timothy 6:6-9 KJV)
- “Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” (Philippians 4:11 KJV)
- “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” (Matthew 11:28-29 KJV)
- “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” (Psalm 23:1 KJV)
True happiness and contentment are found in a personal relationship with Jesus. Just like the fictional story at the beginning of this post, the emptiness inside us cannot be satisfied with things of this world.
Both of my children have had to write essays on the nonfiction book In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. Capote details the murder of a family that took place in a small town in Kansas in the 1950s and the investigation surrounding it. Herb Clutter has accumulated quite a bit of wealth due to his many hours of hard work. Two men break into his home in search of cash and kill him and his family. Three things in this book stand out to me involving the search for contentment and happiness. First, the Clutter family was wealthy, yet his wife suffered from depression. Money did not provide happiness for her. Second, two men envious with greed thinking money would make their lives better took the lives of an entire family for no more than forty dollars. The pursuit of money they thought would make them happy led them to take four innocent lives and eventually to their own destruction as they were put to death by hanging. And third is a comment made by the investigator’s wife, Mrs. Dewey. Her quote, “…Sometimes when I come home for work–well, I’m tired. But there’s always coffee on the stove, and sometimes steak in the icebox. The boys make a fire to cook the steak, and we talk, and tell each other our day, and by the time supper’s ready. I know we have good cause to be happy and grateful. So I say, Thank you, Lord. Not just because I should–because I want to” (Capote 105). In this true story, one with wealth is depressed, the ones consumed with greed and envy destroy a family and themselves, and one truly thanks God for the little that she has. Mrs. Dewey had found the key to happiness.
True happiness… joy…peace… are found in the love of the Savior that gave His life for us.
“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13 KJV)
“But as many as received him, to them gave the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.” (John 1:12 KJV).
“Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:32 KJV)
Sources:
Brooks, Arthur. “Are We Trading Our Happiness for Modern Comforts?” The Atlantic, 22 October 2020, www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/10/why-life-has-gotten-more-comfortable-less-happy/616807/.
Capote, Truman. In Cold Blood. New York: Vintage Books, 1994. Print.
“Facts About Suicide.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/index.html. Accessed 22 Sept. 2021.
“Percentage of Households by Number of Vehicles, 1960-2017.” The Geography of Transport Systems. https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter8/urban-transport-challenges/household-vehicles-united-states/. Accessed 22 Sept. 2020.
Stolba, Stephen. “Average U.S. Consumer Debt Reaches New Record in 2020.” Experian, 6 April 2021, https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/research/consumer-debt-study/.
