This giving thanks in all circumstances thing can be a puzzlement. Who would be thankful their child has cancer or their mother died or they lost their job that keeps food on the table and a roof overhead? Who would give thanks that their boyfriend dumpted them or their wife abandoned them? Who would be grateful for a missing button or a lost address?
From small everyday things to life changing and family shattering things, it seems crazy to do anything but fight, and scream and stay angry, most often because we are frustrated or frightened or terrified. But that is one of the reasons my faith is so solid for me, because I have been willing to give this idea a try in some pretty sad and disheartening circumstances.
This is a bit of what I have experienced: my delightful little nephew was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma and none of us felt anything but afraid and worried and upset. But I came to be deeply grateful that he had attentive and kind parents who had the personal and physical and financial resources to care for him so tenderly. And that experience has certainly informed his life these many years later as he is studying in the medical field and married to an amazing woman who also works as a gifted RN. So, through the challenges of the experience for my nephew and his parents and brother and all the people that love him had many horrid components, none of us would have given up one minute of knowing him and loving him just to escape the icky and horrid and terrifying parts. And this taught me a lot about love and it being something very different than what Hollywood writers too often define in terms so very narrow and misleading.
This is just one experience out of many that have taught me that love always has the capacity to outpace all the bad stuff, if we are open to the possibilities that can follow on those things that frighten us the most. Not because they are not frightening, but because they have no capacity to define us unless we allow it; because God always stands ready to take our hand as we journey through to something infinately better.
Abba Father, today I'm facing something that is JUST TOO MUCH...you know exactly what I mean and I'm grateful because I can simply not find words to match the depth of my sorrow and fear. But I'm thanking you, Father, because I know that You are bigger even than this. I know that, however much I do not want any of this, Your commitment to the highest good of us, each and all, is perfect in wisdom, power and love. Thank you for keeping us all in Your tender care and keep whispering Your love in my ear so that the noise of the world cannot define my being or my inner thoughts. Thank you for being both able and willing to fulfill for each of us Your Covenant with us. AMEN
Thessalonians 5:18 In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
From small everyday things to life changing and family shattering things, it seems crazy to do anything but fight, and scream and stay angry, most often because we are frustrated or frightened or terrified. But that is one of the reasons my faith is so solid for me, because I have been willing to give this idea a try in some pretty sad and disheartening circumstances.
This is a bit of what I have experienced: my delightful little nephew was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma and none of us felt anything but afraid and worried and upset. But I came to be deeply grateful that he had attentive and kind parents who had the personal and physical and financial resources to care for him so tenderly. And that experience has certainly informed his life these many years later as he is studying in the medical field and married to an amazing woman who also works as a gifted RN. So, through the challenges of the experience for my nephew and his parents and brother and all the people that love him had many horrid components, none of us would have given up one minute of knowing him and loving him just to escape the icky and horrid and terrifying parts. And this taught me a lot about love and it being something very different than what Hollywood writers too often define in terms so very narrow and misleading.
This is just one experience out of many that have taught me that love always has the capacity to outpace all the bad stuff, if we are open to the possibilities that can follow on those things that frighten us the most. Not because they are not frightening, but because they have no capacity to define us unless we allow it; because God always stands ready to take our hand as we journey through to something infinately better.
Abba Father, today I'm facing something that is JUST TOO MUCH...you know exactly what I mean and I'm grateful because I can simply not find words to match the depth of my sorrow and fear. But I'm thanking you, Father, because I know that You are bigger even than this. I know that, however much I do not want any of this, Your commitment to the highest good of us, each and all, is perfect in wisdom, power and love. Thank you for keeping us all in Your tender care and keep whispering Your love in my ear so that the noise of the world cannot define my being or my inner thoughts. Thank you for being both able and willing to fulfill for each of us Your Covenant with us. AMEN
Thessalonians 5:18 In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
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