Tag: grateful

Be thankful

My husband and I have been… what is the best way to say it? We’ve been living under a cloud for years now. Whether financial struggles, serious health issues, worldwide collapse of everything normal… you get it, it’s been tough.

It can be easy to feel discouraged. I was reading about depression the other day, I think it was something Tim Pippus (a great preacher – look him up) posted about depression. Women tend to exhibit feelings of depression as sadness, while with men it tends to be anger. We need to be aware of this. We need to learn not to react to each other based on the outward emotion, but try to see past the bevahiour and find the root of the problem.

Even doing this can be frustrating. Sometimes you know the cause but can do nothing to change it. Life is hard! Not just for us, but for everybody. We all have difficult times and struggles.

We are admonished to be thankful in all circumstances. It isn’t a choice, we should just do it, even when it’s tough to do. I have found when I do this, even when I am least thankful, that I soon come across blessings I had not contemplated before. This is the key to seeing God’s hand in our life. We will never see our blessings if we forget to look for them.

Sometimes it’s like finding a needle in a haystack, other times it’s a cup overflowing with goodness. Either way we must seek and see God.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks
in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

The hard road to gratitude

This morning Wes and I watched the latest Youtube sermon by Tim Pippus. He used a text from Genesis 28. The text really spoke to my heart. While I of course enjoyed Tim’s sermon, the verse was even more powerful. This single verse encapsulates how I feel looking back over the events of the last year or so. (I’ve included the link to his sermon below.)

In Genesis 28 Jacob left to go to Haran and he found a place to spend the night. During the night he had a dream where God showed him the blessings he would bring to his descendants. (rough paraphrase) Then this verse – Genesis 28: 16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”

We have never, by material standards had an easy go of life. Money has always been scarce. We have had serious health challenges to manage and yet, here we are. When I look back at the struggles we’ve had, maybe softened by time, I don’t see the individual obstacles I see the wide vista. G.K. Chesterton said, “One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.”

Just a little over a year ago, my husband, best friend, and the rock of my life, had a stroke. He was working at the table and got up and said, “I have a headache.” He rarely gets headaches so it got my attention. Things declined rapidly and about an hour later EMS was at our house.

I was now facing the largest mountain of my life. My life lay in ruins around me. Messy ugly ruins. All I could do was pray! That was all I had left. Just so there is no confusion these were not pious careful prayers. Nope. They were ugly, beggarly, angry prayers. I would have put any irate toddler to shame.

I had no strength. Nothing. I was laid bare. Empty. I couldn’t fathom what to do next. The only thing I could muster was taking the very next step. I couldn’t plan further, think further or see further. Just the next thing. The very next step.

The whole year just seemed to add trouble onto trouble. For those of you who think the Covid crisis has been too much imagine adding it to the mountain of insurmountable challenges we were already facing. Just another THING!

And yet, now a little over a year later, I can look back at the path we’ve climbed. We are by no means at the top, but we’ve come a long way and the path while rocky and steep is behind us.

It is from this vantage I can see God’s hand. I can see the whispers of his presence. I can spot the moments where an answer to prayer sustained us. God has been there, even when we couldn’t see him for the obstacles.

God was here even though we did not know it.