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This saying has been popping up on Pinterest lately and I've been trying to keep it in mind on a daily basis. We get so busy at our house trying to get through one thing in order to get to the next that I often whip through many of my daily tasks by rote without thinking much. Unfortunately, that sometimes includes my daily prayers. It's not that I don't recognize the ways I've been blessed but rather it's so easy to acknowledge those blessing cerebrally without giving myself time to feel them in my heart.
There have been a couple situations the past few weeks that have me all stirred up and feeling uncertain about what the future holds. And since I'm what I call a Pathological Worrier, I let these areas of uncertainty latch on to my thinking and take over my mind and heart. I don't sleep or eat and I feel constant stress. And, even worse, my worry becomes like a giant rolling snowball that gets away from me, careening down the hill of life picking up other petty worries, growing larger and more out of control as I go along.
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I remember talking with my Zippy once when she was younger and mentioned in passing how I was worrying about something. She was silent for a few minutes and then she said, bless her heart, in a quiet timid voice, not wanting to call-out her mom, "Mrs. M (her first grade teacher) says that worrying is a sin." Ouch! As a Christian, my deep pathological worrying (and mine is pathological in the sense that it almost becomes a disease state) is not just bad for my health. It's an indication that I don't think God is in control or that He won't take care of me and mine. It's a failure of faith. Ouch again.
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So this Thanksgiving I'm trying to remind myself of and express gratitude for the ways that I have been blessed and the ways in which I have been provided for. And honestly, I may not always have some of those same blessings but that doesn't mean there won't be others, perhaps even better. I believe in the providence of God and so in addition to being thankful, I'm trying to be more "trustful". The two go hand-in-hand for me at this time in my life and while the process makes me want to cry at times, I am thankful to my core for the lessons in trust and gratitude that I have been learning.
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I encourage you this Thanksgiving to count your blessings and then spend time thinking about them. Dwell on them, mull them over, consider where they come from and what their impact has been on your life. Move from the intellectual acknowledgment that you have been granted good things in your life to a deep, heartfelt humility of how richly you have been blessed. Then open your heart to the idea that you can be blessed in other unforseen ways as well. There's always something to be thankful for.
And yes, I am genuinely thankful for each of you butterflies who come flittering through my jungle. Wishing you a wonderful Thanksgiving.
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