Let’s Talk: Battling Discontentment

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Melissa Kruger: Welcome back to the second episode of Let’s Talk, a new podcast for women from The Gospel Coalition Podcast Network, where we seek to apply biblical wisdom to everyday life. I’m Melissa Kruger, Director of Women’s Initiatives for TGC. I’m here with my friends, Jasmine Holmes and Jasmine Holmes.

Jasmine Holmes: Hey.

Jasmine Holmes: Hi.

Melissa Kruger: If you didn’t catch our first episode on sharing your faith, I encourage you to go back and listen because during that time we told each other how we all came to faith in Christ, and we got to share a little bit about our lives and what we do with our regular days. Today, we don’t want to spend any time on that because we’re going to jump into a big topic. Everybody’s favorite topic-

Jasmine Holmes: Yes.

Melissa Kruger: … of discontentment. This is something I think that we all struggle with in life, at least everyone I know does on a regular basis. I can remember years ago, I was at the park with my kids. We love this park. All the moms went to it because it had a fence around the playground. So, the kids were relatively contained while we’re at the park.

Melissa Kruger: One day, the older kids came up to all the moms and said, “Hey, there’s a field just outside the park. Can we go run around on the field and just keep all the younger kids in the fence?” We as the moms looked at each other and we’re like, “That’s not going to go well if we do that. So you all just need to stay in the playground,” because beside the field was a big road. So, we didn’t want to have to be stressed out worrying about it.

Melissa Kruger: Well, sure enough, I look up five minutes later and every one of those older kids is standing by the fence staring at the field. Now, behind them is a full playground with everything they could have been playing with, sandbox, swings, slide, all the fun things they could have been doing, and they chose to stand at the fence and stare, and just be mad that they weren’t playing in the field.

Melissa Kruger: That is the image that comes to my mind every time I see myself discontent. It’s like I can’t see the blessings of God, and I just see what’s missing. The reality of our lives because we live in a fallen world, is that we are all battling with the fact that life isn’t always right. So let me ask you all, what’s the difference between just dealing with the fact that life isn’t perfect, and then sinful discontentment?

Melissa Kruger: How do we know what’s just an acceptance and, “This is a hard day. Things didn’t go as planned,” and then what’s the difference between, “No, I’m really discontent about something.”

Jasmine Holmes: I think one of the differences is the dwelling on it. When I feel discontent, I can’t move on from it. It’s all I can really think about. It shapes my day, it shapes my thoughts. Every time I think about that topic, I think about how disappointed I am in how things are going in that particular way.

Jasmine Holmes: One of the biggest ways that people talk to me about discontentment throughout my life was definitely during my singleness. People would always say like, “Oh you know, single, you have to be careful not to be discontent. You have to be careful not to be discontent.” I thought that when I got married, discontentment wouldn’t be as much of a struggle for me, but there’s always a new reason to feel unhappy.

Melissa Kruger: Everyone who’s married is just happy, happy, happy.

Jasmine Holmes: I know. I know. I was just like, I even one time somebody was like, “Yeah, but marriage is hard sometimes. Sometimes it’s sanctification.” I was like, “But I’m really excited about that sanctification.” I feel like I’d do better than this. It’s just the same as your field story, looking across and thinking, “Oh, that’s so much better than what I have.” So yeah, not being able to move past it. I don’t think that’s the defining characteristic, but it’s definitely something I’ve noticed.

Jackie HIll Perry: I think one way to see the distinction is how you’re thinking about reality bringing you peace, joy, or is it making you super pessimistic because I think discontentment can do that where it’s, “Yes, this is my reality. I am in a home with five children and we have two bedrooms.” “This sucks. This is terrible. Nothing’s ever going to get better. I can’t believe this is happening to you.”

Jasmine Holmes: When it begins to go down those lines versus, “Yes, we have this many children in this home, but glory be to God, I have a home at all.” I guess the approach to how you see your thoughts and what it even does to your emotional and mental health is a good sign.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah. That’s a really good point because there are hard things in life. So, it’s like how do we hold what is really sad, and that we mourn, and that we are struggling in different parts of life because we’re not in heaven.

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah.

Melissa Kruger: We’re not in the place where all of our desires are met and fulfilled. I find that so hard. How do I not just live a fake life where I’m Pollyanna, perfect over here, “Oh, it’s all good.” It’s not. It’s really not. Then, there’s some line where it crosses over into, “I’m sour.” I’m kind of, “Not only am I discontent, I’m making everyone around me pretty miserable.”

Jackie Hill Perry: Your discontent with this friendship. I need a better friend.

Jasmine Holmes: I’ve been that friend, unfortunately. I think also taking it to God versus just kind of stewing in it and wallowing in it. Sometimes I don’t really want to pray, I don’t really want to change. I just want to be upset and just feel that-

Jackie Hill Perry: Can I ask more question, dig into that. Why don’t you want to pray?

Jasmine Holmes: I’ll just be like, “I’m just not feeling this. I don’t like it. If God cared about me, he’d changed it without me asking.” Probably, it’s the devil.

Jackie Hill Perry: It sounds just all right.

Jasmine Holmes: Yes. It’s just spiritual warfare. You know what I mean? Like just that you get paralyzed in whatever feeling or whatever state that you’re in, and praying is moving forward.

Jackie Hill Perry: It’s an action.

Jasmine Holmes: It’s an action, absolutely. So, when you’re just feeling that inactive, just throw your hands up. Not only is my life not what I want it to be, but it not being what I want it to be gives me license to feel sorry for myself, or to take it out on other people, or to fill in the blank.

Jasmine Holmes: So, I’m just going to be here. I’m just going to stay here is how discontentment often plays out for me or has in the past.

Jackie Hill Perry: I think that’s part of why when God, because I think discontentment is wrapped up in stress, and anxiety, and worry because I think a lot of times we are discontent around, again real things, my bills, my home, my health. You have people that just want to be healthy, just don’t want to have to go to the doctor all the time. That’s fair.

Jackie Hill Perry: I think that might be why God always connects our giving our anxieties and our worries to him. The motivation being that he cares for us. I think it’s hard to give him something if we don’t believe he cares at all anyway because maybe we look at our life or the life stage that we’re in, and we think that this is somehow a sign that God isn’t as good as he says that he is because my life isn’t as good as I would prefer it to be, when that’s not the truth. I don’t think we judge God based on our circumstances, but we judge our circumstances based on who God has revealed himself to be in his son.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah. I think that’s the biggest root issue for me as I start judging God and saying, “Prove to me that you’re good.” Really, what a shocking, sorrowful thing I’m doing because I’m basically saying, “Yeah, I know you sent your son to die on a cross for my sin who was holy, and perfect, and did nothing wrong, and he died this terrible death, but I still am not convinced you love me,” because my minivan didn’t have sliding doors or whatever stupid thing. I mean, you know?

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah.

Melissa Kruger: You know what? I mean, I know our things seem bigger than that, but in the reality it’s like he says, “I gave my son for you. Can you trust me with the others?” It’s really a trust issue. I think at some level, all of our discontent is really rooted in unbelief at some way.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah, agree.

Melissa Kruger: Unbelief that God might not really be good to me.

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah. I just had a big, holy praise breakdance moment in my head when you said we’re told to cast our cares upon God because he cares for us.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah.

Jasmine Holmes: I think so often, I know I doubt that care. So, that’s why the burden casting is not happening. Maybe I don’t trust other people, like other people in the faith too. Even my husband, I’d be like, “Oh, no. It will burden him if I share this,” or “Oh no, it will …” I don’t know, just fill in the blank, and you think of whatever reason not to trust God’s care for us, not to trust the care of people who he’s put in our lives to help ease those burdens.

Jackie Hill Perry: Oh, that’s good.

Jasmine Holmes: I’m like, my brain is kind of blown right now. I’m like, “Wow, that’s so true.”

Jackie Hill Perry: So it’s like you’re really saying community I guess can assist us in growing in contentment, especially considering the fact that if we’re discontent about certain circumstances that can be fixed potentially.

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah totally, or just telling people how you’re feeling. I remember when I had my first miscarriage, it was really hard for me to be around women who were pregnant. It was so hard for me to share that because I felt like that made me a bad person. I couldn’t talk about it. I couldn’t verbalize it. Two things, one thing was a friend of mine who was pregnant. Her son would have been the same age as mine now, which is a really sweet thing actually.

Jasmine Holmes: She was like, “Hey, if I talk to you about my pregnancy, is that hard for you or can I still talk to you about that?” Because I’m a big birth fanatic, always had been. So she was like, “I have questions or I have thoughts, but I want to be aware of you. I want to be mindful of you.” That was really helpful for me and something like a check to myself to be mindful of other people and the struggles that they might be having.

Jasmine Holmes: Then on the flip side, I have a friend who recently had a loss and she came to me and she told me the exact same feeling that I was too afraid to confess to someone and gave me the opportunity to speak truth into her life. Whereas, if she would have not trusted my care for her, if she had not trusted God’s care for her in putting somebody who’d walked that road before in her life, then she could have just wallowed in it and felt completely alone unnecessarily.

Jasmine Holmes: So that’s just one example of, I guess how I’ve seen that caring piece of battling contentment and carry it out.

Melissa Kruger: Hmm, that’s good. We really do need each other in it. One thing I always find complicated is different commands in scripture. So, at one point it says in Thessalonians, “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” Then on the other hand it says, “Rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn, and that there’s a time for mourning.” So how do we hold grief and sadness, and joy and rejoicing? How do we let those two things walk together but not be an opposition to each other? Is that possible?

Melissa Kruger: What does it look like to be able to mourn, to be a mourning person and a rejoicing person all wrapped up in one? I think that’s the paradox Paul talks about. Yeah, he’s like sorrowful yet rejoicing, poor yet making many rich. The Christian life isn’t just all sunshine and puppies. So, how do these two things coexist and not be an opposition to one another?

Jackie Hill Perry: I might be biblically off in this. Please correct me if I am, Mrs. Kruger. I think in Philippians where Paul says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” he’s not really applying that to get a degree in X, Y, and Z, but rather I can learn to be abased and I can learn to be abound because of Jesus. So, I guess that there is a way in which Jesus is able to empower me to live out this paradox.

Jackie Hill Perry: To be like him who is the Son of the Living God, who is a man of great suffering, yet he endures for the joy set before him. How there’s this strange partnership going on where he’s not … I don’t know. I’m just trying to think. His reality doesn’t keep him still or stagnant, but he continues to move forward because he has a greater reward ahead of him. So I don’t know, maybe looking to Jesus and figuring out how he did it.

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah. It makes me think about different seasons too because some seasons are full of rejoicing and some are full of mourning. I always think about whenever Jesus came to raise Lazarus from the dead, he knew he was going to raise him from the dead, but he still was in that moment with his sisters who were sad, who were grieving. Even though the miracle was going to happen, and even though ultimately he would raise Lazarus from the dead in the last day and Lazarus would never die again, he was still able to inhabit that moment before the resurrection, which always is encouraging for me in different times of grief because I think we can confuse grief with discontentment or sadness with discontentment.

Jackie Hill Perry: That’s good.

Jasmine Holmes: They’re not the same thing. I think discontentment is kind of that, like we said, not going to God with it and wallowing in it, versus grief which is an honest assessment of where you are and how you’re feeling. That doesn’t doubt who God is.

Jackie Hill Perry: That’s a tweet. You should tweet her. That exact quote, tweet that. Put it on your coffee table, your coffee mug with your succulent plant. That’s what Christians love to do, buy succulent plants and drink coffee.

Jasmine Holmes: We do like to do that.

Melissa Kruger: Take a picture of it.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yup, with one highlight.

Jasmine Holmes: Before we sip the coffee.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yup. Ain’t read, not a verse.

Jasmine Holmes: Nope.

Jackie Hill Perry: But you’re done prepare that picture for Instagram. I have a question for you. I’m wondering, you’ve been a Christian for how long?

Melissa Kruger: Oh, you’re going to age me.

Jackie Hill Perry:: Give us a-

Melissa Kruger: 30 years.

Jackie Hill Perry: Okay. My question is, as-

Melissa Kruger: I’m 31.

Jackie Hill Perry: Oh, as long as I’ve been alive.

Melissa Kruger: Praise God.

Jasmine Holmes: You’re like John the Baptist

Melissa Kruger: Oh my gosh, I got chills.

Jackie Hill Perry: When I was born, you were born, look at that. I’m wondering as you’ve grown as a woman and grown as a Christian, have you seen discontentment change in relation to just you changing? Does that make sense? As you’ve grown older, does it look differently? Because I’m sure you didn’t. You weren’t discontent with the same things as a 22-year-old as you are now.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah, that’s a good question. Thanks for aging me.

Jasmine Holmes: No. You’re wise. You’re the wise woman.

Melissa Kruger: You know what I would say? Actually, I think what’s changed for me is my perspective on where the discontentment is coming from. So, I used to think it was a problem of my circumstances, and I’d spend all this time thinking, “Well, if I could just find the husband, or if I could just …” At certain points, my husband was in school for a long time. So, if we could just have one job, then we’d be content or whatever it was. Maybe the next season, if we could just get pregnant and have a baby or whatever it might be, I thought, “Then I’d be content.”

Melissa Kruger: Whereas now I would say, what shifted is I recognized I have a heart problem, not a circumstance problem. So, that changes how I fight the battle. I realize, I’m going to be fighting this battle with discontentment my whole life, but I fight it differently. I don’t just try to get my circumstances sorted. I go to God and say, “Give me a better picture of Jesus,” because I recognize I’m always doubting his love for me. That’s what ultimately comes down to is when I’m really sinfully discontent, not when I’m mourning or grieving what’s genuinely sad, like loss or death. That’s, that’s right for us to mourn.

Melissa Kruger: I’m in love what you’re saying, Jasmine. We don’t live an unemotional Christian life. We’re just not stoic.

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah.

Melissa Kruger: Of Jesus, he got angry at the temple changers and he cried when Lazarus died. He had real human emotions. I think we actually miss out on reflecting him to others if we try to be stoic. Wh at I recognized is what I want is such a deep love for God to be the source of my joy. So, where I’m looking for the source has changed.

Melissa Kruger: To me, my discontentment is more of a signpost that I’m looking for life here. Rather than even feeling on the failure of it, I’m like, “It’s kind of like hunger pains.” When you feel a hunger pain, you say, “Oh, I need to eat.” So, when I see discontentment, I’m like, “I need to go to Jesus.”

Jackie Hill Perry: Come on here.

Jasmine Holmes: Praise, dance, hallelujah, clap, clap, turn around.

Jackie Hill Perry: My gosh, give me a flag and let me waive it.

Jasmine Holmes: Let me dance.

Jackie Hill Perry: Fast.

Jasmine Holmes: Up the aisle.

Melissa Kruger: Don’t make me dance.

Jasmine Holmes: Y’all don’t want to see me dance but the way that this conversation is going.

Jackie Hill Perry: No, that was fire. It made me think of like Hannah in first Samuel. How she didn’t have children. Then you got this lady in the house with her that’s vexing her spirit all the time, “I got all these kids and you don’t.”

Melissa Kruger: The husband, he’s like “Aren’t our 10 sons to you?”

Jackie Hill Perry: “Yeah, then why are you tripping? Chill out.” How she goes to the temple, and it says that she cried out to the point that the priest thought she was drunk. To me, that tells me that she was going to God with this thing. I want a child. I don’t have a child. I’m really irritated and really vexed but here is my pain, here are my tears. Can you change it?

Jackie Hill Perry: I think it’s significant that she tells God that if He gives her a son, she’ll give him back. I think part of the issue is if God does change the circumstance, if God does give us what it is that we’re desiring, will we give it back to him? Will we use it for the reason that it was given to us in the first place, which is to be a means of worship. Yeah, I don’t know. That story always encourages me on what I should be doing.

Jackie Hill Perry: Absolutely.

Melissa Kruger: There are so many good images because a different character. I always think of as Rachel and her sister Leah, and they’re in this battle of having children. Well, not really a battle because Leah is the only one having children. Rachel is so desperate for a child. So, she finally has Joseph. I don’t know if you all know because I looked at my footnote one time and I was like, “What is?” They always tell you what the Hebrew word means.

Melissa Kruger: So Joseph, rather that means God has finally answered my prayer and I’m joyful and content, Joseph means, may he add. I think the cry of discontentment is may he add. Just a little more because she’s looking at her sister, and her sister’s over there with six children. So, she only has one son and her sister has six. So, let me ask this question. How do you think in the, or kind of looking over the fence at other people, how can that feed our discontentment when we’re staring over the fence?

Jackie Hill Perry: It’s huge because you start to assume that God is being better to someone else than he is being to you. That’s just not the truth. God is not, he doesn’t play favorites. He rains on the just and the unjust. All good gifts come from the Father of Lights. So, I think it fuels it because that’s just how we are. We just compare ourselves with other people.

Jackie Hill Perry: I think what has been helpful for me in particular honestly, is to just think about heaven because somebody is always going to have more than me. Somebody is always going to be smarter than me. Somebody is always going to be a better communicator. These are the things I compare myself to. Somebody is always going to have those kinds of things which would make me discontent with the good things that God has given me, but in heaven I think I’ll see so clearly and I’ll have all that I thought that I lacked.

Jackie Hill Perry: I’ll have a great body. Well, I don’t know if it will be skinny. I don’t know how that works. I haven’t read that in Revelation. You know, I have a glorified body. So the pain that could come from discontentment with your health, that would be rectified. Whether it’s you want a relationship with your mother that your friend has, so you’re jealous. You’re discontent with that. All relationships will be whole and heal. I think thinking about heaven, sobers me to be okay with what I lack now, if that makes sense. I don’t know.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah, it’s a great point. I like to think of it. Sometimes we live like the airports our home.

Melissa Kruger: This is just a transition place, but if we went to the airport and tried to make our home, we’d be discontent all the time. You’d be like, I’m sleeping on the floor.

Jasmine Holmes: Absolutely.

Melissa Kruger: All these people are coming and going out of my life all the time. This is the airport, and we try to make it our homes. We do pretty well. We make it pretty comfortable, but we forget home’s coming. I think you’re right. We’re just not very heavenly-minded.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah. If I’m going to compare my situation to anything, it needs to be beyond earth.

Jasmine Holmes: Absolutely.

Jackie Hill Perry: That might help me be more in content.

Jasmine Holmes: I think that envy piece also has to do with how we esteem ourselves and what we think we deserve sometimes. My church had been doing a study about the prophets over the last couple of months, and I got to teach about Habakkuk. I was blown away with Habakkuk because the first time that I read the book, I was kind of like, “Oh, what a spoiled brat. He thinks he’s so much better than all these other people and that God should not,” just in case you all haven’t read Habakkuk in a while, because I hadn’t read it in forever.

Jasmine Holmes: Habakkuk is a prophet who is asking God why he’s allowing so much inequity to go on in the land and God answers him and says, “Oh, I’m about to take care of that,” but he says he’s going to take care of it with the Babylonians who are not holy. They’re not God’s people.

Jackie Hill Perry: They’re meanies.

Jasmine Holmes: So Habakkuk’s response is like, “What do you mean you’re going to take care of it with them? They’re not worthy to take care of us. They don’t deserve to be higher than us.” God answers back to him and they go back and forth. The first time I read it, I was like, “Man, what a brat. He asked God a question, God gave him an answer. Sorry, you don’t like the answer Habakkuk.”

Jasmine Holmes: Then, the more I started studying it, the more I was like, “Oh, that’s me.” That’s me being like, “Oh God, I feel like, if you really knew what justice was, you give me this,” or “If you really knew who deserves what, then you give me this.” I grew a lot more understanding of him. Not enough to name one of my children after him because Habakkuk-

Melissa Kruger: That would be rough.

Jasmine Holmes: As a prophet, learned a lot about discontent, learned a lot about trusting God from digging back into that book. There are other prophetic books where there’s just that conversation with God and that pushing, and pulling, and tugging of trying to align their will to his, which I think is a part of fighting discontentment, aligning our will for our life to what God’s will is for our lives.

Jackie Hill Perry: So you’re saying because that’s deep, that sometimes discontentment comes out of entitlement?

Jasmine Holmes: Mm-hmm (affirmative), absolutely.

Jackie Hill Perry: That’s interesting.

Jasmine Holmes: I won’t say every time because honestly there’s real things that don’t have to do with what you feel entitled to.

Jackie Hill Perry: Some.

Jasmine Holmes: A lot of the time.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah, we think we’re owed something. I don’t even think I realized until life didn’t start happening how I wanted it to happen. The first five years of our marriage, we moved five times to Arizona to oversea. I mean they were big moves, and I didn’t even know that I didn’t want that life until I got that life. So, I was having all of these arguments. It was funny. The arguments I was having were not with God. I put the argument on my husband.

Melissa Kruger: So, one thing I think is that our inner desires when they’re not met, James talks about this.

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah.

Melissa Kruger: You know what happens when you don’t get what you want? You quarrel and you fight.

Jasmine Holmes: Yes.

Melissa Kruger: So, I think one of the places sometimes that we can see our discontentment is where are we getting into it with the people we love the most. So for me, anytime something was hard in my life overseas, like getting the groceries, I blamed him.

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah.

Melissa Kruger: Because I didn’t want to fight with God. I wanted to be a good Christian and it couldn’t be God’s fault that my life was hard.

Jackie Hill Perry: It’s just this man you sent me. He was that.

Jasmine Holmes: Yes.

Jackie Hill Perry: This woman you gave me.

Melissa Kruger: It’s his fault. It’s his fault. I do think we played the blame game even with the people we love the most sometimes. It’s your fault because you’re not living up to my expectation, or you’ve taken me to this place. So, now I feel the freedom to blame you. I don’t know if you all have that. Have you had situations where you put the blame on someone else?

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah.

Jasmine Holmes: Yes.

Melissa Kruger: Then I made myself more miserable because then I’m quarreling and bickering with my husband.

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah.

Jasmine Holmes: Yes.

Melissa Kruger: So discontentment often breeds more discontent, right?

Jasmine Holmes: Yes.

Melissa Kruger: So, when we find ourselves kind of in that pit of just circling in our minds why my life is harder than everybody else’s, why it’s somebody else’s fault that I’m upset. How do we get out of that mindset? How do we turn to Christ in a new way and really have that mixture of rejoicing and mourning? Not to just put off the mourning, but how can we refocus our mind and choose contentment? One thing I love that Paul says is that it’s learned.

Jasmine Holmes: Absolutely.

Melissa Kruger: So, I find that really hopeful. It didn’t just come with the Holy Spirit. He says, “I’ve learned the secret of contentment and all things.” So, how do we learn that secret?

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah. I think what you do with your mind is important. I think you have to notice those thoughts and take them captive and replace them with things that are worthy of praise. So, one practical thing might be write a list of all the good things that you have in your life. I have a home. I can talk. I can hear. I can see. I can taste. I have food. I can cook. I have friends. I have a church I can go to.

Jackie Hill Perry: There’s so many things worthy of praise that I think it would choke out the things that we’re meditating on that are stealing the joy and the peace that we shouldn’t be having. So yeah, write down all the good stuff-

Melissa Kruger: That’s good.

Jackie Hill Perry: … and praise God for it.

Melissa Kruger: That’s really good.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah.

Jasmine Holmes: Remembering that the whole of the Christian life is repentance and belief. That’s how we become a Christian and that’s how God continues to sanctify us in our Christianity. So, repenting of discontentment where we find it and working to actively believe that God is who he says he is, and he has for us what he says he has for us.

Jackie Hill Perry: Amen.

Melissa Kruger: That’s good. I think too, I love Ephesians One, and I think just sometimes going through that passage and remembering all the ways we’ve been blessed. The God, the Father’s love through the Son’s work by the Holy Spirit’s power in our life has given us these eternal gifts.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah, because most of this stuff I’m discontent about is earthly.

Melissa Kruger: It’s that heavenly looking, and reminding ourselves of what God has done. I think we just often don’t want to do that.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah.

Melissa Kruger: It really is life-giving.

Jackie Hill Perry: It’ll change everything, I think.

Melissa Kruger: So today, since we’ve been talking about discontentment, let’s talk about what’s your favorite way to relax? What’s your happy place? What do you like to do to relax?

Jasmine Holmes: I go to plant nurseries and walk around and buy too many houseplants. This is my first year of my life that I’ve ever had an actual hobby because my normal hobbies are reading and writing, but writing is also my work. I have to read to be a teacher. So now, I have plants as a hobby and I love it.

Jackie Hill Perry: I feel like you upload plants a lot.

Jasmine Holmes: I do.

Jackie Hill Perry: They’re like your children.

Jasmine Holmes: They are, like as many pictures of my children who are adorable.

Jackie Hill Perry: Do you name your plants?

Jasmine Holmes: I do, only my favorite ones.

Jackie Hill Perry: Really?

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah.

Jackie Hill Perry: My mama, she’s a plant person. She lives with me now, so my home is very green. She names them all and she genders them.

Jasmine Holmes: Oh yeah, I do that too.

Jackie Hill Perry: I don’t know how. They’re all women though. So, I don’t know what that means.

Jasmine Holmes: Some of mine are men, but most of them.

Jackie Hill Perry: Do you get a feeling, like this just fits?

Jasmine Holmes: Just like I know. I have this beautiful Monstera deliciosa and his name is Atticus.

Jackie Hill Perry: Okay.

Jasmine Holmes: Then I have another kind of Monstera adansonii and that one’s name is Big Mama. So you know, you just pick and you choose.

Melissa Kruger: I need pictures of these plants.

Jasmine Holmes: My Instagram is overflowing with them.

Melissa Kruger: They’re like your nice quiet children, right?

Jasmine Holmes: They are.

Melissa Kruger: It’s like they obey.

Jasmine Holmes: I keep them in my kitchen in the corner and they just sit in the corner.

Melissa Kruger: That’s good.

Jasmine Holmes: Great.

Jackie Hill Perry: Okay.

Melissa Kruger: That’s good.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah, I don’t like plants. I have fake ones from Target and stuff. I think right now, a hobby of mine honestly is to watch Netflix. Just find a documentary or some type of cooking competition and just watch it. It just helps me to … My brain is working because I’m still watching something informative because I just like to learn stuff, but I don’t feel like I have to do anything. I could have go far, short, whatever, but I like Netflix.

Melissa Kruger: I want to get your list of documentaries.

Jackie Hill Perry: Oh, I got a lot of them.

Melissa Kruger: Oh, that’s good. I love documentaries.

Jasmine Holmes: Me too.

Jackie Hill Perry: They’re amazing.

Melissa Kruger: My favorite way, I’m so boring, is a book.

Jasmine Holmes: It’s not boring.

Melissa Kruger: I just love to read and sit.

Jackie Hill Perry: Like Christian.

Melissa Kruger: Well, not Christian books.

Jackie Hill Perry: Oh well, come on, explain.

Melissa Kruger: Sorry. I love to read nonfiction historical, just books that teach you about life. I find people just fascinating. I basically think biographies are like People Magazine for dead people. It’s the full story. So, I love to read about all the Russian czars. I mean, they’re fascinating. They were a mess.

Jackie Hill Perry: What’s the last one you read?

Melissa Kruger: The last biography?

Jackie Hill Perry: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Melissa Kruger: Oh, it’s actually about this woman. She was a spy in World War II.

Jackie Hill Perry: Okay.

Melissa Kruger: They dropped her in to France during World War II. I had no idea there were these female spies.

Jasmine Holmes: Oh, wow.

Melissa Kruger: She was a British spy and lived in France. I can’t remember her name. That’s so bad, but it was a fascinating book. It’s just like you learn-

Jackie Hill Perry: Sounds interesting.

Melissa Kruger: … about things that you have no idea how that happened.

Jasmine Holmes: It actually happened.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah, and she was taken by the Nazis, and she was tortured. She lived and all this stuff.

Jasmine Holmes: Wow.

Melissa Kruger: Pretty amazing story.

Jasmine Holmes: That is so cool.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah, it’s fascinating. So, I actually like to read everything that has nothing to do with my job.

Jasmine Holmes: Yes.

Melissa Kruger: It’s just a break. Then, I love historical fiction. I love fiction. All fiction, yes.

Jackie Hill Perry: You all are fun. You all got fun hobbies, plants and biographies.

Melissa Kruger: We can take a picture of our books.

Jasmine Holmes: Yes.

Melissa Kruger: Then, we’ll take a picture of you watching Netflix.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah, Top Chef, all of that is my thing.

Melissa Kruger: Well, thanks for this conversation. Thanks for being with us and listening to Let’s Talk today. On our next episode, we’re going to be talking about overcoming church hurt. So, we’re going to go from discontentment to church hurt.

Melissa Kruger: You can subscribe to, Let’s Talk through Apple podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you like to get your podcasts.

Melissa Kruger: Check out other shows from The Gospel Coalition Podcast Network at TGC.org/podcasts. The Gospel Coalition connects Christians to resources that apply the truth and beauty of the gospel to all of life.