What Are You Grateful For Today?

“If you begin and finish your days with thoughts of gratitude, you’ll find yourself living from a place of abundance rather than lack. Those first and final moments set the tone for the many minutes that fall in between.”

Erica Layne

So what are you grateful for today? Can you make a list and see where it takes you? And if your list, no matter how long, is not enough to ease the suffering of all that you have lost, that’s ok too.

Some of us have lost things that are way too big to be replaced by gratitude. So go easy on yourself. Try for a little gratitude.

Gentle and Humble

In my quiet time, if I make it past the first sentence, which is not all that often to tell you the truth...there is more food for my soul.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Matthew 11:28-30 NIV

We are resting, with purpose. It’s a thing! We rest because there is more to consider.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me…

As I rest, I can learn. I have things that need learning. I am not in charge. But that’s more than ok, because Jesus has promised to walk beside me, yoked. The image is interesting. I close my eyes and imagine it. Jesus is the lead and properly yoked I can stay in alignment with him. I assume this means that days when I decide to be stubborn and stand my ground, Jesus might continue to walk and I will need to follow. The yoke provides me necessary limits - a safety measure for my stubborn tendencies to drift off course.

...for I am gentle and humble in heart…

Wherever he leads, whatever he teaches, it comes from a place of gentleness and humility. Yoked to him, this will need to be my value proposition too. Ok, I breathe. I can follow this way.

...and you will find rest for your souls.

Often my body is screaming so loud for what it wants, my soul’s quiet longing for what I truly need is drowned out. No matter what else I will learn from this God/Man, it will include rest for my soul. My tight chest loosens. My breath slows. My spirit calms.

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Baby, you will never be asked to do the heavy lifting. That is a Jesus thing. May you find rest for your soul today; may your body cooperate with this refreshment!

People Who are Struggling Are Difficult to Affirm

When someone is struggling they don’t act like their “best selves.” This means they will likely be more irritable and less cheerful. They might be moodier. They might criticize you more, or be more withdrawn, or distracted. In other words, they are going to do fewer activities that seem worthy of affirmation.

The question becomes, then, do we want to respond to this behavior in a way that amplifies it or pacifies it? Do we want to help it become better or worse?

Mostly when someone is driving us nuts we want them to stop doing the things that drive us nuts. However, we respond by settling for fighting fire-with-fire. If someone snaps at me, I snap at them. If someone criticizes me, I criticize them, and so on.

The reality is, in most cases we are not going to argue someone from being irritable into being cheerful. However, showing patience, gentleness, and kindness, might help. We cannot, of course, fix another person’s problems. We cannot coerce someone into going from unpleasant to pleasant. But what we can do is avoid piling on during tough times.

You don’t even have to find something current to affirm. You can simply affirm that person for what they have meant to you. For instance, “I know you know this, but I just wanted to tell you again that you are one of my most valued friends.”

Small things can make a big difference.

Don’t let any foul words come out of your mouth. Only say what is helpful when it is needed for building up the community so that it benefits those who hear what you say.

Ephesians 4:29

Gentleness

It’s upsetting when a family discovers that their child is smoking pot.  Obviously. When it isn’t your kid doing it the capacity to not panic and remain calm is a lot easier than it is for the parents.  So when a pair of parents slunk into my office with a plastic bag full of weed smoking materials I was not surprised by their anxiety. Dad was enraged and wanted to lock the kid up and throw away the key; mom had selected a fancy wilderness camp to the tune of $75,000.00 for 60 days (camping supplies included).  No one was all that interested in my suggestion to breathe.

I began to review some interesting data on substance use and suggested things that might be helpful but they weren’t paying much attention.  Dad sat staring off into space and jiggling his leg; mom kept glancing down at her ipad with the pretty mountain vista on the homepage of the wilderness camp.  Finally I wised up, shut up and just let the whole thing blow up.

Mom accused dad of being cruel and thoughtless and loud and mean; Dad charged that mom was in denial about almost everything but especially about the reality that they didn’t have $5,000 much less $75,000 available to send a pot smoking, disrespectful and disappointing adolescent male to a camp that looked like a reward for good behavior.  Eventually they wore themselves out and silence fell.

I told them that I did not have a quick solution to their problem and that I was sorry that this wasn’t like taking a car into a shop for a tune-up.  This journey was going to be more marathon than sprint. Big sighs were shared. However, I did have one thought. I reminded them that the world was a harsh and contemptuous place.  I recounted what they had already told me about their kid - crushing injury that killed his chance to play a sport he loved, three family moves in five years and a recent breakup with the girl of his dreams.  I told them in no uncertain terms that their boy was under a lot of stress and their response would either add to that distress or not; much of that depended on them being able to get their own acts together, manage their own anxiety and depression and heartbroken expectations AND respond to him in a way that took all these factors into consideration.  We had to discuss a bit this idea that I threw out about how I was concerned that both of them were reacting to their son’s pot use in a way that was managing their anxiety MORE THAN figuring out how to address the problem in a way that would give him the best chance of seriously considering their position. Barely convinced but willing to set up a follow up meeting I left them with one thought:  in a world that will smack us down in a New York minute, go home and just be nice to your kid. Be gentle. Be kind. Practice that for one week and then we will come up with the next step.

Here’s the deal.  In any and every situation, even from a long distance, we can be kind and wish others well - even our vilest enemy. I’m not saying it is easy; I am suggesting it could be a more congruent response to broken relationships than praying for smiting!  Which fits your core values better?