What Perfumes Taught Me about Contentment
Happy new week! How have you been? Please, forgive my long hiatus in the month of March. Between losing an uncle and steep deadlines at work, it was difficult for me to just sit and write. I hope the month of April has been off to a great start, and I promise to do better this Month – this God given talent cannot come and waste. I would also like to express my gratitude to those who subscribed even when I wasn’t posting, and those who have reached out to ensure that all was well on my end. May God reward your kind hearts for continually supporting this platform.
Now, off to our topic for today – contentment. Contentment is one of those topics that is constantly at odds with the age we now live in. With one click, we are easily transported into different people’s worlds. Some, perfectly curated to illicit a type of unholy desire in the consumer, as if to say – look at what I have, which you will never get.
Social media has made it difficult for one to be content. In the past, if discontent wanted to creep in, one would have to be in presence of those who have more than you do, for you to perhaps notice that there is something you are missing out on. If you lived in a one bedroom face me – I face you, soaking your garri each day, it isn’t until you come out of that environment that you’d perhaps notice that others have it better.
These days, discontent rears its ugly head all too quickly because of the easy access to smart phones and social media. While you toss and turn on your bed, trying to fight the gripping heat, you pick up your phone to distract you from your harsh reality, and you are transposed into a world riddled with a variety of things that perhaps you did not have a desire for initially. However, as you keep scrolling, questions like this pop up in your mind – “God, am I a potato?”
Getting on social media and endlessly scrolling, can be akin to taking a bite into the fruit plucked from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, awakening your desires to have more, to be loved like those who flaunt their love on social media, to go on vacation every two market days – to live a soft life like your mates are doing – I mean, do they have two heads? You ask yourself.
Many have gone as far as insulting their parents for not working “hard enough,” to provided them with certain luxuries. That age old serpent entices you to believe that if you have all these things that your eyes can see, just then would you be content. What he fails to tell you though, is that you’d keep wanting for more and more, because there will always be someone who has it better than you. As such, amassing material wealth, influence, or even fame does not produce contentment, only a life that has chosen to be subject to Christ, can truly enjoy satisfaction in Him.
How did perfumes teach me contentment?
So, there was a time when I was broke, and as such, I couldn’t afford to buy a good perfume for myself as I once used to. You know when you are broke, you are not often thinking about luxury but the necessities, like what you are going to eat, and how you will pay your bills. Thus, purchasing a bottle of good quality perfume wasn’t on my radar, even though I desired it.
A friend of mine had sent me $40 to get myself whatever I needed. I was happy about this and split the money into multiple parts to cater to different needs. Out of this $40, I spent 8000 Naira on perfume. I got about three tiny bottles of “Victoria Secret” perfume. Once I sprayed this perfume, before I walked out of the door, the fragrance was gone – I should have saved my 8K.
There came a time when I was chosen to be a bridesmaid for a wedding, and I shared a hotel room with a group of girls, one of which was my cousin. When the morning of the wedding arrived, after I dressed up, I began to eye my cousin’s perfume bottle. Let’s just say I had been eyeing it since the day she unpacked at the hotel. “My cousin get original designer perfume now, so that means I go smell good too.” Or so I thought. I was met with a harsh reality when I asked my cousin if I could spray her perfume in front of the other ladies, and she said “no.”
I felt a mix of shame and embarrassment when I realized that it wasn’t a joke. What hurt me the most was that if the shoe was on the other foot, she wouldn’t even have to ask me; she knows that she has access to whatever I have, if she is with me. And so, when I was met with a “no,” I had to swallow my shame, and spray my “Victoria secret,” in peace, even though the fragrance remained a secret. That experience taught me two things – 1. Do not be entitled to somebody else’s stuff. 2. Be content with what you have.
It would have been easy for me to point fingers at my cousin saying she was a bad person, however, what I lacked was contentment. It was not like I was suffering from body odour and needed to mask it with a good perfume, I just wanted to smell nice, so when I go outside, people would know that I had arrived.
The world comes at us each day, telling us that what we have is never enough. It shows us through social media that we need more clothes, designer clothes, designer perfumes, shoes, purses, luxury cars and homes, and even a new body (but this na story for another day). If you are not careful, if you are not content with what God has blessed you with, you’d begin to lust after these things, which have the propensity to displace God from His rightful place in your life.
Jesus speaking to a group of people in Matthew 6: 25-33, tells them (and us) not to even be anxious for the necessities of life. We are to first seek the kingdom of God and its righteousness, and the necessities which we are tempted to burden ourselves with, will be provided by God.
My favorite passage which stems from Hebrews 13:5-6 says, “Keep your life free from the love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So you can confidently say, “the Lord is my helper, I will not fear; what can man do to me?”
1 Timothy 6:6-10 says, “But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.”
So, back to my story about perfumes. A few weeks after the incident, a friend of mine was japa(ing). While I helped her sort her things out and pack, she handed me this giant bottle of Versace perfume, that her aunt had given to her. “You can have it, she said.” I was excited. A few weeks prior, I was ridiculed for not having beta perfume, but here I was, with my friend, gifting me something I had desired for a long time, not knowing anything about what transpired.
That same year, I got five more bottles of perfume, (original perfumes o!) Out of the five, two of them were gifts. The following year, I received three more, which were also gifts. It is important to note that I never requested the perfumes from the people who purchased them for me. They weren’t even around me to know that “this girl no get perfume oh, so let’s help her so she doesn’t smell…” God, through His providence, employed something as seemingly insignificant as perfume to teach me a lesson on entitlement and contentment, while revealing His goodness to me in the process.
I hope we can resist buying into the deception of social media; recognizing that much of it is just a façade anyway. Genuine contentment and satisfaction are found in Christ. While earthly wealth may be granted by God, Christians are called not to parade it, but to share generously, understanding that blessings are meant for communal benefit. I would also say this, we are not meant to be entitled to someone else’s possession. If you ask someone for something, and they say no, that is still okay. You are still going to carry on with your life – it is not the end of the world. And before I forget, don’t hold it against them.
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