Give Thanks

I have been in a weird place emotionally for the past 6 months or so.  I have started so many posts for this blog and ended up deleting them, because I didn't like the rawness of them.  I wondered, "What would someone think if they read that?  Would they question my belief in God?  Would someone think I was depressed?" And it goes on.  So here I am.  I'm not really ready to talk about all these things publicly.  But it's doing no good sitting inside me, staying bottled up.  God is telling me to share, at least a little, if for no other reason than to get it out of me.

I can't really pinpoint what's going on in my heart.  There are a myriad of circumstances that are contributing, none of which are that huge in and of themselves, but it's more like a stacking, one on top of the other on my back that is getting to me.  My relationship with God is dry right now.  I believe, but at the same time I have some hurts that I just don't understand.  Sometimes I can't reconcile the God I know with the world I live in.  I know that it's just life.  How can I have hope when some days I just feel so much anger and despair over the world I'm a part of?

A friend recommended the book One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp.  I started reading it this week, thinking, "How can I have thankfulness in my heart when I'm not thankful for the bad stuff going on?" I don't know that I have the answer to that yet, but I'm working on it.  I wanted to share a passage from this book that is getting to me right now:

"I only deepen the wound of the world when I neglect to give thanks...Why would the world need more anger, more outrage?  How does it save the world to reject unabashed joy when it is joy that saves us?  Rejecting joy to stand in solidarity with the suffering doesn't rescue the suffering.  The converse does.  The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful and all things true, even in the small, who give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and now, they are the change agents who bring fullest Light to all the world.  When we lay the soil of our hard lives open to the rain of grace and let joy penetrate our cracked and dry places, let joy soak into our broken skin and deep crevices, life grows.  How can this not be the best thing for the world?  For us?  The clouds open when we mouth thanks."  (Voskamp 58)

Give thanks.  Is that where my heart needs to be in order to heal?  I'm willing to try.  Lately I've neglected my efforts at thankfulness.  Sure, I'm generally thankful.  I have breath in my lungs, a husband who loves me, healthy children, a house and food and any other worldly thing I think I should have.  But I don't name them.  I don't tell God specifically what I'm thankful for.  We pray with Ellie at night and she's picked up from us the phrase, "Dear God, thank you for today."  What does that even mean?  Thank you for today.  There are a million events, moments, memories in one day and all I can come up with is "thank you for today?"

So...in an effort to work through some of these things, I'm going to list some specific things I'm thankful for right now.  I'm not poetic like Ann Voskamp, so my list will likely sound kind of dull (at least to me), but just know that my heart is in these things.  And as a side note, I love that as I start writing this list my dog starts barking and wakes up the girls.  Such is life.

1. Walking outside in the warmth with the girls
2. My sweet Piper covered in peanut butter after eating a big lunch
3. Ellie saying, "Pretty snow!" when the petals blow off the trees during our walk
4. Time to read while the girls nap
5. The softness of our bed, and that Billy's side smells like him

Five things.  Better than nothing.  God, please use this to heal my heart a little.  Help me see joy and thankfulness all the time, not just when things are good.  

"Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed--not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence--continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose."  Philippians 2:12-13