Thankful Living

We had another great Thanksgiving this year! Kate has loved helping Mamaw in the kitchen since she was a baby - and Mamaw is always kind enough to let her "help" while she's trying to get dinner ready. Each year she's enjoyed whatever part of Thanksgiving dinner that she was developmentally able to eat, but this year she seemed to really enjoy her feast!

The art of being continually thankful is something I'm trying to achieve this year and the Thanksgiving holiday really renewed that desire in my heart. The four or five years before the joyful ones pictured above were extremely difficult for me. Everyone goes through the hill and valley rhythms of life. I've been extremely blessed these several years since Kate's was born to have so many more hills than valleys - but the season of life just before Kate's arrival was unfortunately an opposite type of blessing.

Looking back I can see that time of testing, frustration, and soul weariness as a "blessing" because of all I learned, how my relationship with the Lord deepened, and how those valleys shaped who I am today - as well as how they undoubtedly affected my ability to more fully appreciate my current "hillier" days. But, to be honest, while I was going through what seemed to be an endless stretch of valley after valley I felt discouraged, abandoned, depressed, alone, helpless, and so many other overpoweringly devastating emotions.

In hindsight I can clearly see how much life I missed because I allowed myself to be debilitated by painful emotions. I missed the chance to share in the joys happening in so many lives around me. I missed opportunities to develop relationships and/or maintain several of them. I missed all the little blessings in our lives that are there if we take time to look around us and thank God for them (like waking up in the morning, the weather, that perfectly timed traffic light that kept us safe from an accident, a genuinely caring friend, etc).

Without any hint of pessimism, I feel that it is fair to predict that this current season in my life of abundant hills with few valleys will not last forever. So I need to find ways to learn from the mistakes I made in my last season of many valleys so I won't be tempted to repeat them.

The most profound idea I've stumbled across to remedy my problem is found here: "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Phil 4:6). What specifically blew me away about this much quoted passage was when I heard someone say that scientists have proven it is literally physiologically impossible for our brains to be thankful and anxious or stressed at the same time - we were given a key piece of information on how our bodies were designed to be at peace in that verse. (Because I just heard this fact in passing, you'll be glad to know I googled it and one of the sources backing the reliability of the idea is here.)

Based on that fresh understanding, if I can find a way to fill my days - whether they be spent on the hill or in the valley - with thankfulness, then there won't be any room in my heart or mind for anything but peace... and who doesn't want more peace and less stress? To take it one step further, if I'm living in peace I'll be able to be more mindful of the needs of those around me, to be a better wife/mother, and to not risk a repeat of the sad existence I let myself sink into during my last valley season of life. A dear friend of mine who is currently enduring her own set of valleys reminded me tonight that the birds don't worry about tomorrow so why should we? There's no reason for my stress and anxiousness, I just need to cling to the truth and be thankful!

So now that I can clearly see my goal, I need to find concrete ways to achieve it - because what good is a new understanding if I don't put it into practice? I want to actively take steps toward more continually thankful (i.e. rarely anxious) living. I want to someday see annual pictures of me like the ones of Kate's past Thanksgivings above where you can see an obvious forward progression of growth and maturity as the time passes. So I commit to giving thankful living my best shot each day. And next time I'm going through one of those inevitable valleys, I give anyone reading this permission to ask me what I'm taking time to be thankful for and to hold me accountable to grow and not regress!

There was a lot written and said this past Thanksgiving week about what we're all thankful for, but my question for the blogosphere tonight is this: how do you express your thankfulness for those things?