Gratitude

I’ve been reading a book titled One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are by Ann Voskamp. I stumbled across a review of it a few weeks ago and was intrigued but fearful. It seemed to offer what I was looking for and speak into the topics in my life that are most pressing. I read an excerpt from it that made me cry, I was so moved by it. And yet I was afraid it would be one more disappointing book that promised something – a way out? Hope? The possibility of change? – and mostly turned out to be fluff. The same words just shifted around. No real substance. I was really looking for a new perspective, a new way of looking at life and my relationship with God, and sustenance. I found it – in part, at least – in this book. I haven’t finished reading it yet but have been savoring it one section at a time. 

She takes these two subjects of living fully where you are and gratitude – one which has always eluded me and another which I have valued but not lived – and she gives a new perspective. She – in a back way that catches you off guard – brings life and energy and hope with an intriguing way of writing. A disarming and vulnerable way of writing that allows you to be with her, feel her story, and be touched by what God was doing in her life. A way of writing that leads you right back to God although you never suspected you were headed in that direction. There were no trite Christian sayings, no shaming over not being a super Christian, but there was God. She writes in a way that allows God to open up life inside of me without me working so hard or trying to force it. In a way that allows me to step into where God is already at without all the legalism and the knowledge that in the end blocks me from God. 

I highly recommend her book. Someday I would love to write something as equally powerful, vulnerable and inspiring. 

Last night I ended my evening reading this quote. “I, too, had read it often, the oft-quoted verse: ‘And give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (Ephesians 5:20). And I, too, would nod and say straight-faced, ‘I’m thankful for everything.’ But in counting gifts, to one thousand, more, I discover that slapping a sloppy brush of thanksgiving over everything in my life leaves me deeply thankful for very few things in my life. A lifetime of sermons on ‘thanks in all things’ and the shelves sagging with books on these things and I testify: life-changing gratitude does not fasten to a life unless nailed through with one very specific nail at a time.” (page 57)

I like this. I think this is where I miss out on the life that I do have. I am always rushing ahead to the “someday” things, the big things, and I am rarely here in today. I am rarely thankful and I am often longing for what I do not have. I want to be here, now. Enjoying all I have – which is this very day. I can’t change the past and I don’t have the future guaranteed. Only this moment in time, right now. So I will start with the small things I am grateful for. I am thankful for a ticking clock, a soft blue blanket, an overstuffed armchair. I am thankful for bathrooms and my doctor. I am thankful I don’t have a needle in my arm now. I am thankful for writing classes. I am thankful for soft dogs, for my soft dog, who is goofy. I am thankful for naps, and this day off work. I am thankful for lists but also for trash cans where sometimes lists need to go. I am thankful for friends who listen and ask thought provoking questions and who journey with me in this life. I am thankful for a husband to share life with. I am thankful for the breath God gave me. I am thankful for how intricate and amazingly God created our bodies, to work so efficiently, to be so complex and yet run (mostly) smoothly. I am thankful He literally holds our cells together, holds my cells together. 

And now, with all this thankfulness, I am tired. It is time to take a nap.

Peace and Perspective

That is what I am praying for these days.

It’s felt like a rough couple of months, maybe in particular a rough couple of weeks lately. I have realized I am an anxious person. That sounds silly to say. How could I not know that before? I always knew; I just liked to hide it and stuff it. Or rationalize that because everyone else is anxious too, I am really “normal” and don’t need to change this. Both ploys don’t work so well. In fact, it usually ends up keeping you up at night or waking you up early in the morning. Then the lack of sleep feeds into the craziness and makes everything spiral downward.

It’s been a time of internal transition for me. God wants to do something deeper. And as a somewhat mature Christian of many years, this should be a thing of joy for me. After all, it’s what I say I want, right? Growth and maturity so that I may continue to please the Father who loves me abundantly, so that I may walk in His will.

But He wants to go deeper than I want to go. He wants to go to scary places I would rather not be. He wants to bring up things I have tucked safely away in hopes of never seeing them again. He wants to address areas that I don’t want addressed.

It shakes me. It makes me want to try to control my surroundings even more. It makes me want to find security in my circumstances. And my circumstances, relatively, are good. But there is no peace in them because they are always changing.

Why is my first response to something new God is doing fear and running? He is like a surgeon wanting to cut the cancer out that is killing me, but I am too afraid of the knife to let Him. Why do I think it is all about the knife? The knife is simply changing circumstances that God wants to use in my life. I should not be concerned with the knife and wondering what it is all about – I should be concerned with the surgeon. Is he trained in this specific area? Is he dependable? What is his track record for good results? And I ask those things about my Surgeon. Is He faithful? Yes. Does He love me? Yes. Is He capable? Yes. Can I trust Him? Yes. Does He want the best for me, and does He know what that is? Yes and Yes. Will He give me what is good? Yes. Sometimes His good hurts. Sometimes His good doesn’t always mean answered prayers and happy endings. But can I trust Him even when I don’t understand? Yes. Has He proven Himself and His love to me? Yes, a million times over.

I want to trust Him with whatever knives He chooses to use in my life. I want to remember this is more about Him and who He is than what currently happens to be going on in my life (though He certainly cares about those things). This is the perspective I must hold tight to and this is the peace that I pray for. For you and for me.