thankfullness

Today I am thankful.  I am choosing to be thankful because I do not always feel thankful.  Just as I can choose joy when I do not always feel it, I can choose gratitude as well.  Give thanks in all things (1 Thes. 5:18).  January has been a month of emotional twists and turns for me.  I sometimes step back to look at my life and wonder how in the world I am living this life?  I was quite content with the “boring” and routine life of just being a wife and mother for so many years.  I know I often complained and I know was not always thankful for my life, but I was largely content with the blessings of family God had given me and I had a happy future mapped out.  But apparently a whole bunch of twists and turns and lessons were in store for my future instead.  And I have said it before but it is true, with the greatest sorrows also comes the greatest joys.  I am not sure the second can even truly happen without the first.  We have to feel deeply both ends of the spectrum to really feel at all.  Christ did.  And He is our example to follow.  We were not created to simply live boring and routine lives, although we can certainly have seasons of that.  But we were created to participate in big and amazing things.  We were created to participate with God in his work, and his work is almost never boring and most assuredly always amazing.

I had high hopes that 2018 would be an amazing year of happiness for me and when the first week of the year was filled with sorrow and loss, I questioned.  But God persistently reminds me over and over that his plans are always for my good, for a hope and for a future.  And so I remain trusting and thankful.  A friend spoke these words to me, straight from prayer last week, “If she had continued... the grief before her would have been greater than the grief behind her. This was not the not the time... In days ahead, I will lead her... For all of this was a false start and a false beginning. In the future she will see and know what I, her God, am doing."  These words were so shockingly affirming to my heart because they show that God always knows my heart, knows my needs, knows my wants, and he goes before me to pave my way.  I don’t know why I have had this false start but I know God is using it for my good and because I know that God was a part of all my past grief, I know he is protecting me and guiding me in my future.  The sorrows of this moment are indeed momentary and passing, teaching me trust and patience.  And they are protecting me from myself.  How many times over will God keep patiently teaching me to let go of what I want and trust him?  He will lead me, he will protect me, and he will provide for me. 

And then this week God flooded me with willing others who spoke this love repeatedly to my soul.  And I badly needed it.  I am so thankful for each of you who have encouraged me and prayed for me and just have been willing to let God speak truth through your words or comfort.  Every time I fall into that pit of despair and grief, which had not happened for a long while, God reminds me that he sees me and he knows and he walks with me through it.  He does not just pluck me out at my first cry of distress, he gently sits with me in my despair and whispers his truth to me.  I do not like it that way, I just want to be saved, I want happiness and joy to be the themes of my days.  But he lets me sit in sorrow because the slow working through of that pain brings about a greater joy than a swift rescue would.  And so I remain thankful.  2018 will indeed be a great and joyful year because I choose for it to be that way.  I am reminded to stay obedient and open and willing to participate in God’s work and not “settle” for anything less than his way and his plan.

 

sunset from my yard

fog rolling in at sunset