Ok, so I have been away from the blog for a while. Call it a mental health vacation. May need more in the near future, but for now I'm back after The Great Pause known as Thanksgiving. I am feeling thankful this year, and I think it is ok to feel thankful after Thanksgiving…right? Santa and the Black Friday Smoke Monster will allow that? I hope?
I digress. Often and wildly. Sometimes the most powerful times of thankfulness come when it is really difficult to be thankful. Like when you have lost someone. Or your life is crazier than a barrel of monkeys inside yet a bigger barrel of monkeys. Or when you're not sure how to take your next steps. (Or when all three are true!) But I am thankful. And that is powerful. Gratitude orients us in the universe. When I am thankful I can remember which way is up, and I can find out who I am, and who I want to be.
1. I am thankful for Summer. Thinking of my life without her is a truly scary thing, and she is my favorite person. Her existence is proof of God's grace to me.
2. I am thankful for our children. They are wonderful, beautiful kids...and growing too quickly...and I want to jab a stick in the spokes of time so I can just soak up the moments with them. (Take that, time!)
3. I am thankful for God's love, and the love He has given to others to show my family as we have gone through the loss of my mom. I am thankful her suffering is over, and that her life told the gospel story.
4. I am thankful for the small group of people who took a chance on us six years ago when we packed up our lives and moved to Pennsylvania. They were instrumental in some monumental changes in our lives, and they are great friends, and now cheerleaders as we move down the Hopesprings road in Siouxland. Their faith is inspiring.
5. I am thankful for the small group of people in Sioux City that have begun the journey here with us, and for all of the amazing times we've had in the last couple months loving God and people, and serving this city. Their faith is inspiring.
6. I am thankful to be breathing in air heavy with the love of God.
Thanks is like medicine. It silences greedy, black voices filled with what-ifs and regret. It gives us the ability to take the next step, realizing that everything around us is a gift and we are here, today, and we might as well get on and do something with the time we are given. Gifts demand a giver, and when we give thanks, we are pulled by the gravity of the love of God into an orbit of praise and worship. When we look at what we've been given, it's evident Someone is up to something.
Someone is up to something in your life. And mine.
Rejoice always. Pray continually. Give thanks in every circumstance. This is God's desire for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5.16-18
