Contentment comes from God

Jennifer Sappenfield Woodbury

Have you ever thought about what it would be like to have your closest friend move to a place so far away that you could only hear his or her voice over a scratchy ham radio?

Until a couple of years ago, the thought of being separated from certain people would have been really depressing—I definitely thought that my own happiness was contingent upon the people who were around me. But when my closest friend, my boyfriend, got a job in Antarctica, one of the most remote areas in the world, I had to learn how to depend on God for my contentment.

When my friend told me about the position he had received in Antarctica, I was getting ready to enter my sophomore year in college. Because I believed that his absence would create a void in my life, I was furious with him for accepting the job. I argued that he was deserting me during an important time in my life and that my academic progress would suffer. I had lists and lists of reasons why he shouldn't go. Eventually I suppressed my own feelings enough to support him, because he felt that working in Antarctica would be a valuable career experience.

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