As we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow here are some thoughts on thankfulness. There are two really important words in this short verse from St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians, peace and thankful.  A focus on both of those words will help calm down the worry.   Gratitude is powerful and not only does it do wonders for our own troubled heart, but it’s also a beautiful gift to everyone else.  Here is an interesting thing I learned about being thankful. Recent MRI studies have mapped the gratitude circuitry in the brain, which activates a sense of reward, fairness, and decision-making—all aspects that help facilitate survival.  In case you might be looking for ways to ramp up the gratitude here are a few tips to help you sprinkle a little more thankfulness in your day.
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*Make it a habit at least once a day to say out-loud three things you are grateful for.

*End your day by jotting down a few things from the day that you are thankful for.  I often tell the story of how my mom had a practice of doing exactly this very thing.  It was her belief that if the last thing on your mind before sleep was something you were thankful for instead of something you were worried about, you’d sleep better and wake up more positive.

*Tell at least two people a day thank you!  Make it specific if you really want to brighten someone’s day and spread a little joy.  

*Make sure your thank-yous outnumber your complaints.*Check your perspective, if you’re having trouble thinking of something to be grateful for, check out the situation of those around you and that might help you see your situation through a different lens.

*Volunteer…Jesus wasn’t kidding with the whole “serve others” thing.  Turns out, it’s a great boost for our gratitude and our happiness.

*Notice and appreciate the little things. I was in the middle of a train-wreck of a day not long ago and a little boy with Downs Syndrome walked up to me in the store and gave me a carnation.  He said, “You look like you need something pretty and a hug.”  In that one split second my attitude completely changed.  

*Be with the people you love.  Make sure you surround yourself with people who lift you up, make you laugh and bring you joy.

*Find some gratitude scriptures you can call on when you’re feeling a little worried and wilted.  God’s word is always true and always meant to bring good.

We worship freely, we have all we need to eat, we have shelter, we have transportation and people who care about us.  Those things alone make us some of the richest people in the world.  I don’t know about you, but I think I should sit down and make a list of those and the hundred other things I probably take for granted and add them to my gratitude list.  Sounds like a great way to chase the blues away.

A Seed To Plant:  Spend some time working on your gratitude list and then find a few great scripture verses about gratitude you can use when the worry gets heavy on your heart.​

Blessings on your day!

​I’ve chatted with several people lately who have shared that their schedules were pretty nutty!  In case that’s you, I hope todays post touches your heart and brings a splash of hope and comfort to your busy days.  During the busy seasons, remember to take your to-do list to prayer each morning and know God will organize it all for his glory even if we’re feeling a little overwhelmed.  While I was knee deep in a busy stress season recently, I was working my way through the tasks, and I was encouraged when I remembered back to swimming lessons when I was a little girl. Just for the record, I HATED swimming lessons.  I remember the required trip into the deep end and that feeling of complete helplessness when I realized my feet couldn’t touch the bottom and I had nothing to grab on to.  The instructor would yell, relax, close your mouth and tip your head back so the water won’t go up your nose. I didn’t enjoy anything about that feeling.

If that feeling is familiar here is another little tidbit I learned in swim lessons that just might help.   When you close your mouth and tip your head back so you can breathe, you are automatically looking up.  Quietly looking up is always a good idea and it’s a practice that can offer not only survival, but surprisingly, great joy!  Sometimes we cram way too much into our weeks but as the waters rise, keep asking God to keep you from drowning.  Not only will he answer, but he will bless you with lots of little surprises along the way. He will arrange every detail, every timetable and every event.  Things may not be completed as early or fast as we want but it all gets finished.  He provides help when we don’t expect it, laughter when we most need it and great friends along the way.  Sometimes he even arranges great parking when we peel into the parking lot at the last minute.  If we let go of the control and the expectations we will see him guiding and loving us through even the busiest days.

 Sometimes we have to reach out and ask for help and we might have to eat left-overs a few times or pull something “not so dirty” out of the hamper but it all falls in place when we make him the boss of our busyness. I’m in awe of the way God can swoop in and put things in order if we just close our mouth, tip our head back and look up to the giver of life and the master of all time and tasks.  Perhaps I should try that more often!

A Seed To Plant: Tip your head back, close your mouth and look up to the giver of life and enjoy your day!​

Blessings on your day!

These words were a part of last Sundays first reading, and they are stuck to my heart like Velcro!  The noise this verse was making in my head really picked up volume when I threw a little hissy fit because I was making cinnamon rolls to take to a friend and realized the brown sugar container was almost empty.  You simply can’t make a batch of proper cinnamon rolls with just a sprinkle of brown sugar for heavens sake!  As I spit and sputtered around the kitchen trying to figure out who to call to borrow sugar, I was frustrated about the inconvenient task of getting enough to finish before the dough was ruined.  It was a silly thing to get flustered about but right in the middle of my dramatic grumbling, something prompted me to look on the pantry shelf above the canisters and low and behold…there was a full unopened bag.  Once the convenient solution to the problem appeared, I began to feel ridiculous as the words of the widow in the Scripture Reading came to mind.

Nobody was going to die or even notice if the cinnamon rolls weren’t made the usual way.  There was no consequence that warranted me getting all flustered.  If I’m being totally honest, I actually found not one, but two bags of unopened brown sugar on that top shelf…and then I felt really silly, and   my heart was wide open for the lesson to come.  As I stood there rolling and cutting dough, I realized the lesson wasn’t about organization or brown sugar at all,  but about the widows lesson of trust and enough.

The poor widow wasn’t being dramatic, that was her reality, and she had embraced it and stated it to Elijah plainly.  It was all she had yet she shared it with him knowing the direness of her situation would arrive even sooner.  As I puddle that through my thoughts, I realize how much excess I have…how much extra I think I need and I had to ask myself why?  Why did I have two full bags of brown sugar?  Did I need them, would we suffer peril if I ran out?  I stood there looking into my pantry realizing how much we have but yet I still had that flustered feeling when I thought I was almost out of something.  Boy, do I have a lot to learn from that widow.  I began to wonder about the security I feel when there is “extra” and I noticed so many places I seem to have “extra extra!”  Is my hope and trust in the pantry, or the closet or the garage?  Do I put faith in the security of my excess or in provider of the abundance?  I have a lot of wonders.  I don’t think the Lord wants me to quit going to Kroger until my pantry and fridge are completely empty but even if I did, I wouldn’t be in the same boat as the widow.  I realized I trust my planning and bargain shopping skills to offer a bit of security and I knew I was being invited to shift those things to a trust in God’s Providence.
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I’m not the widow and I don’t think that’s what Jesus is asking me to be, but he did stir in my heart a desire to trust him more and to grow in generosity.  He isn’t asking me to empty my house of everything but oil and flour, but he is inviting me to look at what I might be clinging to for security and take a peek at all the things I keep around “just in case” that I could share with others.  Mostly, he’s asking me to pray long and hard about the word “enough” when it comes to the things of the world because I think sometimes, they litter the path to him.  Ultimately, he’s reminding me that he loves me just like he loved that widow and her son and he will always make sure I have more than enough of the things that really matter when I seek him first.
 
A Seed To Plant:  Join me this week in taking an honest look at what we have, what we need and what we can let go of to make more room for the Father. 

Blessings on your day!
 

​As I type and upload this post it’s late on election night and I think the whole country will fall asleep with a mind full of wonders.  There are hearts that are troubled, worried and hopeful tonight.  No matter what the news will be, we can be sure that the Father has us tucked tightly and safely in His abiding love and protection.  As I pondered just how close to us the Father is, I remembered a trip a couple of months ago that routed me through the Dallas Ft. Worth airport on a Friday evening which was a crazy adventure to say the least.  It was a stormy night which added delightfully to the chaos and lots of delayed flights added to the crowd.  I had to board a tram to connect to another terminal and when I got on, it was full but not packed but as the tram approached the second stop that began to change.  Each stop added another glob of passengers, and I got packed tighter and tighter toward the middle of the tram car.  Everyone was laughing about it which was great but at one point I had to turn my head sideways in order to breathe because my face was pressed tightly into the back of a tall gentleman in a tailored suit who would probably not have appreciated me breathing on his fabric.  I remember getting off at my stop thinking; Phew! I don’t think I’ve ever been packed so tightly against that many people in my life!

Today’s quote from St. Catherine of Siena reminded me of that tram trip in Dallas.  It also reminded me of a line from Psalm 139, I will hem you in behind and before with my hand upon your shoulder.  God desires to be that close to us; as close as water to a fish and as close as the people in the tram car.  Isn’t it funny though that sometimes we think he’s so far away?  If that’s how we feel, then the ten-million-dollar question becomes; is he far from me or am I far from him? 

I am a visual person.  I learn much better by demonstration and touching than reading so when I came across this quote it made Gods desire to be with me so visual and so clear.  I don’t know about you, but I’ll take the blame for all the bad geography!  You can’t get much closer than water to a fish or being hemmed in from before and behind so if God’s not close it’s because I’m in the wrong place. If I don’t feel him close it isn’t because he’s taken a lunch break, it’s because I’m not on the path he led me to. If I can’t feel him when I reach out it isn’t because he’s not there; it’s because I’m reaching for something that isn’t mine to have. I suppose before I again question his nearness to me, I’d better make sure I’m in the right spot…on my knees with my arms stretched out toward him asking for a rescue and a re-start.  He doesn’t want to be a Father who loves me from a distance; fish and water are pretty close, and he wants to be even closer than that to me.  Come on God…I give you permission to invade ALL my space!

A Seed To Plant:  Find a picture of a fish and put it somewhere visible to remind yourself how close God is to you then while he’s right there, go ahead and ask him to guide and help you!

Blessings on your day!