The Spring of Our Discontent

Today I explained to (she would say “lectured at”) my daughter about the realm of discontent.

Discontent occurs when expectation and reality don’t match. I read that in an article once. I don’t remember where. I don’t remember if it was a Christian article. I think not, actually, but there’s still a gem of wisdom in it. We all have expectations—some high, some low, some mediocre. Often, we have unrealistic expectations of near-perfection, but reality falls far short.

It’s in that gap, that shortfall between reality and expectation, that discontent dwells.

If my near-10-year-old wakes up with the expectation that her mother has made her do schoolwork three days in a row and, therefore, she won’t possibly be made to do schoolwork a fourth day in a row…well, reality won’t match her expectation. Discontent sets in, with a bad attitude and a short temper not far behind.

If I wake up with the expectation that it is a school day and that all my children will cheerfully complete their assignments with no argument and little urging…well, reality won’t match my expectation. Discontent sets in, with a bad attitude and a short temper not far behind.

If I expect my daughter to take her puppy out regularly so accidents don’t occur, but instead find a puddle on my kitchen floor…reality hasn’t matched my expectation.

If I expect to have a few quiet minutes to write a blog post without my children breaking out in violent arguments…well, you know.

Often, we hold those around us—our spouses, our children, our parents, our friends, our coworkers, our pastors—to unrealistically high expectations. Sometimes we hold even ourselves to such unbearably high expectations, though I’d argue we don’t do it near as often. When reality crashes in on us, we experience discontent. A bad attitude and a short temper follow not far behind. It’s ugly enough when one person in a room is living in a state of discontent. When two or more dwell there, it’s downright toxic.

I’m not that discontented today. I can’t say that on a regular basis. I wish I could, but all too often I hold those around me to expectations they certainly can’t meet. Today, though, I began with reasonable expectations. (Okay, I’m getting a little irritated by all the interruptions. Still.…) I know my children have been dragging their heels over their school work all week, so I expected today to be the same. I know they’ve been squabbling all week. Yup, today is the same. In other words, if I expect my children to need training and guidance because they’re not perfect angels…well, reality certainly meets my expectations.

(Update: I did not expect my six-year-old son to sneak into the fridge and drink a cup of whipping cream I planned to use for dinner tonight. I now feel discontented.)

I’m not saying we should have low expectations. I don’t expect my children to be completely undisciplined hellions who never learn to read and write. We certainly shouldn’t wake up every morning expecting the worst from everyone around us, or thinking that surely some (inter)national disaster will hit. There are things we should never be content with—slavery and human trafficking, for example. We should never be so “content” with those being in the world that we fail to act. I’m not sure where I’m going with this, exactly, except to say there’s a balance.

My oldest pronounced today “the worst day ever.” Why? No one close to us died. There were no natural disasters in our sphere of life. We didn’t lose our home and my husband didn’t lose his job. So what, aside from pre-pubescent hyperbole, made this “the worst day ever”?

She has a cold sore. The play tunnel broke, and her brother’s being a pain. She lost a paper dragon she made out of scrap paper. She had to do math. And that’s when I had to sit her down and explain to her that her expectations for this day were unrealistic and would lead to discontent. Schoolwork and chores will always be here in some form. Aches and pains are part of having a physical body. Toys will break, and little bothers certainly will be a pain. The reality we face may not, probably will not, change, but our expectations certainly can. And when our expectations change, so can our reactions. We no longer have to live in a state of discontent.

But this isn’t just some exercise of willpower or mental strength. I think that, while our expectations in life are often unrealistic, our expectations of God can be, too. Not that we expect too much from God. Quite the opposite. Our expectations are often too low. Got that? We don’t expect as much as we should from God.

The book of Philippians is a great example of contentment. I quoted Philippians 4 several weeks ago on a different topic, but it fits so perfectly well here, I can’t help but quote it again:

“Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.  I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Phil. 4: 11-13, ESV).

Did you catch that part at the end? I think part of Paul’s secret was not only a realistic view of humanity, though he had that in spades, but also a realistic view of God.

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28, NIV).

Paul knew, his expectation was, that whatever happened, God was behind the scenes, working His own purpose. Shipwrecks, beatings, jail time, none of it mattered, because he expected God to have his back. God, the all-powerful Creator of the universe. The one-and-only God who loved his creatures so much he took on human form, died on a cross for our sins and was resurrected to conquer death once and for all. Yeah, that God. Maybe it’s a large concept to expect a 10-year-old to grasp, especially when it’s difficult for a 40-year-old. It’s probably what I should have led with, though. With expectations like that, who can be anything but content?

I’ve rambled in this post, and may have gotten off topic. It may be because I have been interrupted approximately 50 times by arguments, tattling, crying, random stories, and Chinese dragons like this one:

This slapstick Chinese dragon was one of my blog-writing interruptions today.

Of course, I should have expected all of it!  I will try to be content, though, remembering that “godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Tim. 6:6).

On a side note, one of my expectations for today was that I would paint a second hive box so I could put a two-gallon top feeder in it to give my new second colony a boost. Mission accomplished! I feel pretty content about that.

Hive box painted!

Feeder and box on for the new colony. Mission accomplished!

Buzzy, Buzzy Tuesday

Our bees swarmed today.

I knew they were getting crowded in their hive. I’d done my best to get out ahead of those ingenious, tenacious little insects—researched how to split a hive, researched swarm patterns, attended a beekeeping workshop. I ordered a new hive box so I could split the buggers into two hives. I intended to be really systematic this time around. There would be glue in the joints. The box would be painted in an attractive camo pattern. I would create a hive stand of cinder blocks and two by sixes.

Fed Ex delivered the hive pieces to my doorstep yesterday, but I left it all in the box, unassembled, thinking I would assemble it later, maybe this weekend. I felt good. Things were finally progressing so I could prevent a swarm.

And today they swarmed.

It’s amazing how quickly a day can go topsy-turvy. Usually it’s my kids driving me crazy, but sometimes things just go crazy all on their own. It was 1:30 p.m. I had just called my oldest in from recess to work on spelling. She came running, breathless and excited.

“Mommy, the bees are so busy today! You have to come and see. I’ve never seen them so busy!” she panted.

Sure, I thought. It’s sunny. The bees are busy. No biggie.

But I humored her and walked outside…into a tornado.                   

The tornado of living, buzzing bees was a swirling mass spanning the back fence between our property and our neighbors’. Yards across, it was dozens of feet high. It was breathtaking, awe-inspiring, and terrifying. Already I could see a bivouac forming on a branch in our neighbors’ yard.

Our neighbors who are really cool, but one of whom is deathly afraid of bees.

I panicked. All my plans, all my thought processes, shut down. I knew I first had to alert my neighbor to what was happening in their front yard. Fortunately, the non-bee-phobic neighbor was home. I had time.

I couldn’t find the nails. No. Nails. Anywhere. Despite the fact that I knew for a fact I had bought them. So I herded the kiddos to the car and tore for the lumber yard. I needed cinder blocks anyway.

On the way, I prayed that God would overlook my lack of experience and abject stupidity and help me retrieve the hive before they left their temporary bivouac and made a new home in some nice person’s attic. In an act of Divine intervention and blessing, God led me right to the person I needed.

I was scanning the nails frantically, trying to remember what size I needed, when an employee saw and took pity. He showed me the size I thought I needed and I shook my head. My memory was faulty. It looked too big.

“What do you need it for?” he asked.

“A hive,” I responded sheepishly.

“Oh, congratulations!” he responded. “These here are the right size for a hive. They’re only going into a one-by, so they don’t need to be that big.”

“You know about hives?” I gasped.

“Yeah, and I was going to ask if you have all the pieces you need. I have some pieces lying around back at the house.”

He knew about hives. He knew about bees. And, as it turned out, he had helped retrieve a swarm. He said it was one of the coolest things he’d ever seen.

My heart rate, which had been racing like a jack hammer since first seeing the tornado of bees, slowly calmed. I can do this, I thought. He assured me I could. I drove home with nails and four cinder blocks.

Despite being a bit calmer, I still worked frantically. Never has a hive body been assembled so quickly. Square the edge. Bang, bang, bang! Square the next edge. Bang, bang, bang! No glue in the joints. No pretty paint. No paint at all. Just four wood walls and lots of nails. And still the difficult, painstaking, hot, meticulous work was ahead of me.

Hive body in hand, I went to the neighbors’ yard. The branch the bees had chosen for their bivouac had broken under the weight of tens of thousands of bees, and they had fallen to the ground beside the fence. As I watched, they were streaming toward the fence and the gaps between the planks. Hopes of shaking a branch full of bees into my box vanished. I would be scraping and scooping bees, a handful at a time. I had to be thorough, because I needed to get the queen. I had to be gentle, because I didn't want to crush her. And that’s what I did, with a hand trowel when I could, and with my gloved hand when the trowel didn’t provide the right angle. The sensation when I used my hand was strange, not unpleasant, an intense vibration that drove right through my muscle to my bones. I hated using my hand, though, because they could sting my glove where they couldn’t sting the shovel, and many bees died that way.

The branch couldn't hold the weight of the swarm, and it landed on the ground.

I dumped the bees into their new home a handful at a time.

Three hours later I had collected all but a few stragglers. Since I didn’t see the queen in the stragglers, I could only pray she was in my new hive box. They seemed to be taking to it well—free rent, after all—so I capped it and left it until evening, when my husband would be home from work, the bees would be settled, and we could move the box to it’s new spot atop two cinder blocks. That worked as planned, except for the violent thunderstorm that lit up the sky and drenched my husband and I as we moved the box. By 7 p.m. we had them settled. Tomorrow we’ll see if they stay in their new home.

No frills, but plenty of fuss, accompanied the hive on the left to its new home today--complete with a thunderstorm and gale-force winds as we prepared to move the box.

“Well,” I told my husband, “Bees keep life interesting.”

“They sure do,” he said.