The 'Perfect' Family Vacation: When Contentment Isn't Part of The Package

by Margarita Valdes

Plenty Isn't The Problem

Contentment fails in the middle of plenty, not just in the middle of lack.

What do you remember from your last family vacation? I’m sure there are plenty of family photos detailing all the picture-perfect moments. But somewhere in providing deluxe accommodation, not the one, but two-day amusement park passes and all the food and drinks, something rears its head that you thought was not possible in the happiest places on earth.

Yes, somewhere between the third ride and the second meltdown, I found myself thinking the sentence every parent or grand-parent eventually thinks on a family trip.

We came all this way, spent all this money, give them everything they ask for and this is the attitude I'm getting?

In mid-thought, I suddenly remembered a Bible story I'd read a dozen times and never once connected to a theme park line.

The Israelites had the most extraordinary experience in human history. God had rescued them from four hundred years of slavery through miraculous events and was now guiding them to the Promised Land, all the while providing for their every need.

And still, in Numbers 11, they're grumbling. "But now our appetite is gone. There is nothing at all except this manna before our eyes!"

They weren't lacking a good thing. They'd just stopped seeing it as good. Even manna, food that fell from heaven, didn't satisfy.

That's not a story about ancient people with short memories. That's a story every one of us standing in a two-hour line under a hot sun, watching a good day quietly slip through our fingers because of a lack of contentment, can relate to.

Teaching Contentment. Discipleship Never Takes a Vacation.

Contentment isn't caught. It's taught.

Here's the thing nobody tells you before you plan the trip. Vacation isn't a pause button on real life. It's real life, just somewhere else, with less sleep and more sugar. Which means the same heart that needs shaping at the kitchen table on a random Tuesday still needs shaping in line for a roller coaster.

I plan the itinerary. I do not plan for the moment my kid looks at the happiest place on earth and decides to be miserable in it. But I've come to believe that moment isn't a detour from the trip. It is the trip. Discipleship never takes a vacation. It just packs a bag and comes with us.

Remembering what Paul wrote to the Philippians from a prison cell, not a beach chair, reframed this whole thing for me. "I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation." Philippians 4:11

Notice the word he used. Learned. Not felt. Not stumbled into. Learned. Contentment wasn't Paul's natural temperament, it was something he built, on purpose, through circumstances a lot harder than anything I’d faced. Because Paul had been beaten and imprisoned, I was just standing in line with an extremely miserable child. The keyword popped into my head again. Learned.

Family vacation contentment wasn’t going to happen by accident, or by lecture. That last part is a bonus tip, meaning I have tried the lecture.  

A Lesson in Family Vacation Contentment Lasts a Lifetime

The memory that outlasts the trip. Teaching them to choose gratitude over frustration.

So, what does the teaching look like, mid-meltdown, not after the tears have dried and the moment has passed?

The antidote to the lecture works better than you’d expect. Crouch down. Get to eye level. And instead of a lecture, ask one question.

What's one thing you're thankful for right now?

That's it. Small enough for a four-year-old to answer, honest enough that it still works on a teen. It doesn't fix the wait time or undo the meltdown. But it interrupts the spiral, and it plants a habit that outlasts the trip. Paul told the Thessalonians to give thanks in all circumstances, not just the easy ones. I don't think that verse was ever meant to stay in a Sunday sermon. I think it was meant to show up in a theme park line.

Here’s what I keep coming back to when I think about the "perfect" vacation. The rides will blur together in a few years. The photos will end up in a folder I rarely open again. But the memory of recovering the moment, with a simple question, teaching them the value of choosing gratitude instead of frustration, that's the memory that didn’t show up in a picture. But that's the one worth preserving in my mind.

A vacation is momentary. A lesson in contentment is for a lifetime.

As always, we pray you Experience His Love and Live the Better AFTER.

👇Next time the meltdown hits mid-line or mid-anything, skip the lecture and try the question instead. I'd love to hear what your kids say. Drop it in the comments.