Wallow or move on in gratitude

Sheila Walsh is a Chirstian woman who often emails just the right thought when I need it. The italics are my thoughts the regular type is from Sheila.

Often at Buble study we talk about grace and gratitude. We can never be thankful enough to repay grace. Grace is a magnificent gift. For a long time when I was heavy into my career I kept a daily gratitude journal. Somedays would be tough and all I could be gratful for was that I got through that day! It was over, tomorow starts anew.

I learned that at least I can be grateful to be through with it. Whether it's a miserable experience or just a bad day. Gratitude for the endurance.

Recently Sheila wrote about a talk radio show, where the host's main concern is to speak the truth, however painful that may be to hear. And at times the truth is fairly brutal. The woman caller was very upset at her stepmother who had never lived up to the daughter's expectations of what a mother should be. The caller had never known her own mother, and for thirty years she had allowed herself to be wounded over and over when her new "mom" didn't measure up. I felt real sympathy for this woman. There are so many things in life that are just not fair.

(My comment here is notice that Sheila says, "allowed: herself to be wounded." This reminds us that we can't be wounded if we think about it--we have to allow it. We can certainly be hurt, but we can get over it!)

Life seems random and cruel to many people. The host didn't appear to share my sympathy. And I was struck by her simple message that has enormous potential to impact our lives. I'm paraphrasing a little, but she said something like this: You have a choice. You can spend your life being angry at what you did not get out of life or you can count your blessings for what you have. I thought about what she said for some time. We all have losses in our lives. But if we choose to feast on them every day, they numb our souls to all the good that God pours out on us every day.

We can choose to remain in a "stuck" place regretting what is not, or we can become alive and fully awake to what is good and true about our lives.

Sometimes we are so aware of what is not there that we miss what we have. Yet the very act of being grateful for what we do have multiplies our gratitude and opens our eyes so that we see that we have even more than we thought we had at the start. Can a grateful heart change our actions and our relationships?

Choose to act with a grateful heart. Cultivating gratitude removes us from being victims to being free to love and act as we are called to do. I believe that living with a thankful heart is a large part of that process. Waking the soul is more than a one-time conversion. It is a daily turning from what is destructive to what is Christ like.

That practice of gratitude is something I've kind of taken for granted here in retirement--even here in the tundra! What a great reminder of being thankful, of moving on in gratitude and of not wallowing.