Thankful Thursday (ed. 2.7)
again, I'm a little late, but I'm doing it. Yesterday was long and I was exhausted. I had hoped to blog but my babysitting gig, which is normally easy and laid back turned into *not* such a laid back night. It's all good though... Moving into what I'm thankful for this week:
This week, I'm Thankful for....
...perspective and bad days...
Sometimes, you just have a bad day. Sometimes you have a bad couple of days. I had three. The first three days of the week were pretty much hell for me. For a lot of reasons, and I won't get into the details, but what i will say that is by Monday afternoon, I was sick on top of everything else. Stress is no fun. Conflict is no fun, and feeling like you're being cooked in a pressure cooker is also no fun. Yet, even though I had two grand meltdowns by the end of Monday and two lovely ones on Tuesday, they were not the worst days I've ever had. And that perspective keeps me from falling into complete despair. I'm thankful for the kinds of days I've had that keep crappy and unpleasant days from stopping me from knowing they'll end. Because really, with a bad day, at the end of it, you get to curl up in bed and go to sleep and hopefully wake up to a better tomorrow. There is always that. And even if you wake up to a not so better tomorrow, you get another opportunity to try again the next day. Great though, huh? Really, perspective is what life is about. I'm thankful for perspective, and I'm also thankful for bad days.
...healthy relationships...
this week, I had a conversation with someone I care for deeply and it went a little something like this, I said: "It's not that I wouldn't give you every breath that I breathe, but Jesus gets them first." the response came: "That's the way it should be and I like it." I found that to be one of the most romantic, poignant moments I've ever had in any relationship ever. As I've contemplated that over the last 48 hours, I realized how solid an indication of the health of that particular relationship. That neither of us are depending on the other for things that only come from Christ - identity, security, etc. Truth is, I've learned that in crisis, it's nice to have people to support you, but if you cannot walk through a crisis alone with Christ, you're depending too much on people. I'm not diminishing the need for a friend, but I can't depend on anyone to fix my problems, listen to my tears and whining about my junk and not take it to Christ first. If when, I begin to fall apart the first thing I do is get in my car and drive to someone's house and fall apart, or call my best friend and dump all the tragedy on them first...there's something violently wrong with the relationship with Christ. And also the relationship with the person you're clinging so desperately to. They cannot be your Savior, your healer, your counselor, your tear-catcher...and everything else. That's a job for Christ alone. I've found him to be absolutely sufficient. I'm thankful that in this season in my life, and the journey I've been on has brought me to a place of relational health with both man and God. It's a gratitude that sinks deeply daily.
...baby boys...
or, just babies in general. This week, three babies were born, my nephew Aaron Edward (so precious with his dark curls), and two other friends of mine had babies as well. Oh the joy of new life. I contemplated deeply on the arrival of little Aaron on Monday. I mean, my brother and wife went to bed Sunday night not realizing that the next day LIFE would arrive. There is something profound in that. The arrival of babies is almost always sudden, and without fail, life changing. Aaron's arrival reminds me that God has LIFE planned for us everyday and we aren't expecting it, we can't see it coming but He wants it to change us, to lean into that. Man, I want to explode from that thought! Unexpected Life. Lord, bring that! And you know what, all that from the birth of a baby boy in Pennsylvania. God is good. I'm thankful for babies.
...Poison & Wine by The Civil Wars...
A lot of people see this song as a break-up song that is depressing and beautiful. Well, they get the beautiful part right, anyway. If you've been a fan of the Civil Wars for any length of time, which I have been since before they're big explosion on the scene (yes, that's my brag that I knew about them before they 'made it'...haha) , you know that Poison and Wine is actually a song about commitment, seeing a relationship through the uglier, hard moments when as much as you love someone, you don't like them very much for the the things they've said or done. Our pastor discussed this on Sunday, as he talked about marriage and compared it to our relationship with Christ. How there are times when you just "don't feel" the love in marriage and sometimes, you're just in it because you've committed to it. I've seen it in every single marriage that I view as healthy and Godly. They go through seasons when it's just the commitment of "I will." that makes them stay. I came to understand this song in ways that I had never known before. And now, it reminds me to lose the selfishness in me and love at a level of sacrifice that Christ exemplifies in any moment that I feel like I deserve something, or should see some action that doesn't happen the way I think it should. Truth is, I love this song for the promise it holds. "I don't love you, but I always will." - it's an understanding of relationships that unless you've walked in love for someone you cannot fully grasp. Love is bigger than how I feel. Love is action, commitment, and a whole lot more. Beyond the more profound reasons I'm thankful for this song, I like the way it sounds and how beautiful song it is...and the hope it offers.
...rainy days...
this week, amid a storm of stress, sickness, conflict and other issues, God gave me three beautifully rainy, foggy, balmy days. Those are genuinely my favorite days and while some people I know don't consider God to be all that intimately concerned with how I feel about the weather, I do. He knows my heart intimately on levels that no human does and does so much for me that I can't see and don't acknowledge ever. So, I'm going to consider those days of dreariness - that for some odd reason- bring me hope and happy calm - a gift and thank Him for them. This week, I'm thankful for rainy days.
This week, I'm Thankful for....
...perspective and bad days...
Sometimes, you just have a bad day. Sometimes you have a bad couple of days. I had three. The first three days of the week were pretty much hell for me. For a lot of reasons, and I won't get into the details, but what i will say that is by Monday afternoon, I was sick on top of everything else. Stress is no fun. Conflict is no fun, and feeling like you're being cooked in a pressure cooker is also no fun. Yet, even though I had two grand meltdowns by the end of Monday and two lovely ones on Tuesday, they were not the worst days I've ever had. And that perspective keeps me from falling into complete despair. I'm thankful for the kinds of days I've had that keep crappy and unpleasant days from stopping me from knowing they'll end. Because really, with a bad day, at the end of it, you get to curl up in bed and go to sleep and hopefully wake up to a better tomorrow. There is always that. And even if you wake up to a not so better tomorrow, you get another opportunity to try again the next day. Great though, huh? Really, perspective is what life is about. I'm thankful for perspective, and I'm also thankful for bad days.
...healthy relationships...
this week, I had a conversation with someone I care for deeply and it went a little something like this, I said: "It's not that I wouldn't give you every breath that I breathe, but Jesus gets them first." the response came: "That's the way it should be and I like it." I found that to be one of the most romantic, poignant moments I've ever had in any relationship ever. As I've contemplated that over the last 48 hours, I realized how solid an indication of the health of that particular relationship. That neither of us are depending on the other for things that only come from Christ - identity, security, etc. Truth is, I've learned that in crisis, it's nice to have people to support you, but if you cannot walk through a crisis alone with Christ, you're depending too much on people. I'm not diminishing the need for a friend, but I can't depend on anyone to fix my problems, listen to my tears and whining about my junk and not take it to Christ first. If when, I begin to fall apart the first thing I do is get in my car and drive to someone's house and fall apart, or call my best friend and dump all the tragedy on them first...there's something violently wrong with the relationship with Christ. And also the relationship with the person you're clinging so desperately to. They cannot be your Savior, your healer, your counselor, your tear-catcher...and everything else. That's a job for Christ alone. I've found him to be absolutely sufficient. I'm thankful that in this season in my life, and the journey I've been on has brought me to a place of relational health with both man and God. It's a gratitude that sinks deeply daily.
...baby boys...
or, just babies in general. This week, three babies were born, my nephew Aaron Edward (so precious with his dark curls), and two other friends of mine had babies as well. Oh the joy of new life. I contemplated deeply on the arrival of little Aaron on Monday. I mean, my brother and wife went to bed Sunday night not realizing that the next day LIFE would arrive. There is something profound in that. The arrival of babies is almost always sudden, and without fail, life changing. Aaron's arrival reminds me that God has LIFE planned for us everyday and we aren't expecting it, we can't see it coming but He wants it to change us, to lean into that. Man, I want to explode from that thought! Unexpected Life. Lord, bring that! And you know what, all that from the birth of a baby boy in Pennsylvania. God is good. I'm thankful for babies.
...Poison & Wine by The Civil Wars...
A lot of people see this song as a break-up song that is depressing and beautiful. Well, they get the beautiful part right, anyway. If you've been a fan of the Civil Wars for any length of time, which I have been since before they're big explosion on the scene (yes, that's my brag that I knew about them before they 'made it'...haha) , you know that Poison and Wine is actually a song about commitment, seeing a relationship through the uglier, hard moments when as much as you love someone, you don't like them very much for the the things they've said or done. Our pastor discussed this on Sunday, as he talked about marriage and compared it to our relationship with Christ. How there are times when you just "don't feel" the love in marriage and sometimes, you're just in it because you've committed to it. I've seen it in every single marriage that I view as healthy and Godly. They go through seasons when it's just the commitment of "I will." that makes them stay. I came to understand this song in ways that I had never known before. And now, it reminds me to lose the selfishness in me and love at a level of sacrifice that Christ exemplifies in any moment that I feel like I deserve something, or should see some action that doesn't happen the way I think it should. Truth is, I love this song for the promise it holds. "I don't love you, but I always will." - it's an understanding of relationships that unless you've walked in love for someone you cannot fully grasp. Love is bigger than how I feel. Love is action, commitment, and a whole lot more. Beyond the more profound reasons I'm thankful for this song, I like the way it sounds and how beautiful song it is...and the hope it offers.
...rainy days...
this week, amid a storm of stress, sickness, conflict and other issues, God gave me three beautifully rainy, foggy, balmy days. Those are genuinely my favorite days and while some people I know don't consider God to be all that intimately concerned with how I feel about the weather, I do. He knows my heart intimately on levels that no human does and does so much for me that I can't see and don't acknowledge ever. So, I'm going to consider those days of dreariness - that for some odd reason- bring me hope and happy calm - a gift and thank Him for them. This week, I'm thankful for rainy days.
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