On giving thanks

Job was a man whose situation makes me shudder. He lost everything except his own life and the choices he made on how to live it, and God rewarded him greatly for his faith. I'm not sure that, if put in the same position, I'd be quite as honorable. What was the key to his ability to live through the tragedy of losing his home, possessions, and family? How did he manage to live through and come out onto the other side?

Many Christians say faith is the key. Have faith that God will deliver you. And yet tragedy continues to throw good and faithful Christians to the wolves. Situations don't seem to change with prayer. Then how do some remain faithful? This is where non-believers can point a finger at believers and say, "Where is your God now? You're a good person and you prayed for this to happen. Why does he choose to answer some prayers and not others?" In these times of tragegy, some Christians just lose faith.

Well, actually there's an answer to this.

God answers every aligned prayer.

Every. One.

Notice the extra word - aligned. In other words, if your intentions are pure, and you've chosen to follow His path, you only need to ask Him how to proceed, and He will guide you to make the choices necessary to make it happen. Prayers that stem from despair, anxiety, anger, greed, suspicion, and any other emotion stemming from fear keep you from lining up with what He has in store for you, and those prayers cannot be answered. That's not the way God operates. As I read once in the book Breathing Underwater, God is all about providing for our needs but not necessarily our wants. And our needs are up to His discretion. Are we lined up with his will for our lives? If so - watch the prayers get answered!

So what does this have to do with giving thanks? One thing I have learned through my divorce is that God allows us free will and the ability to learn. He provides us with the tools to become closer to him, and it is our choice as to how we use those tools. Some people walk away from Him. Some pay little or no attention to the Divine and try to fix things or heal alone. Some draw nearer. Those of us who have drawn nearer start to understand that every situation - significant or not - is a situation from which we can learn. Each learning experience brings with it a new set of questions and "ah-ha" moments if we would just allow those moments to happen.

Staying present and watching each situation with curiosity and an expectation to learn means that we start to learn and change at a quicker pace. We begin to realize that God grants our needs before we even know we need them, and this is where gratitude comes.

I've heard dozens of moms say that they wish their kids were more grateful. More appreciative. As a grown-up, I, myself have preached the "be grateful for what you have" speech a multitude of times. But we are not simply talking about the "you should be grateful for that food on your plate because there are kids in other parts of the world who don't have food to eat" idea. We are talking about the ability to learn and grow. When adversity hits, this is the capacity to thank the Almighty for the message and the opportunity to change, discover, and become new.

This is a difficult concept to teach our youngsters but not an impossible one. It's a matter of pointing out learning opportunities when adversity stands in our paths and the paths of our kiddos. Of saying thankful prayers out loud in front of them and then pointing out how we grew at the end.

That being said, I am truly grateful for the situations that I have found myself in over the last forty-two years. Although I spent a majority of my life ignoring Jesus and his soothing forgiveness, once I found my way back, the lessons I should have learned during some very difficult times of my life started to flood over me and the metamorphosis has been overwhelming! Events over the last year have come together and worked together in a seamless pattern of healing and change. And the new me is emerging.

I cannot express how truly joyful I am when I think of all that I've learned about myself and the woman I'm becoming. Is this what kept Job so close to God? I cannot imagine what else could have held him steadfast on his journey, regardless of what he lost. So this year, my Thanksgiving stems from gratitude for forgiveness and unconditional love, for friends who stand by me in my ugliest times, and those who check on me while I'm becoming aware of myself and expanding. I am truly the luckiest woman alive.

Namaste.

The message in 1 Corinthians 13

1 Corinthians 13. The love chapter of the Bible. It's what popped up on my devotional book today. Verse 12, to be exact. Interestingly, just yesterday I had a conversation with a friend about the mistake of taking single verses out of context and trying to make them work in your life - of using the Bible to justify your actions, choices, or thoughts. So today I was like Let me just read this whole chapter.

I'm so glad that I did...

As a master manipulator, motivation behind behavior has always been a key factor in how I chose to act. Even the way I said or wrote things was a way to get what I wanted. It's so embarrassing to admit this, but what good would it do to keep it a secret? I'm glad I tell people upfront now. I want them to know who I was and who I am now. I'm monitoring myself minute by minute now because I choose a new route. No way I could do this on my own, which is why I've chosen Christ's path instead of the main road I didn't even realize I had been taking for forty-two years. 

But how? you ask. Oh trust me when I say this has been a lengthy and painful discovery and an even more lengthy and energy-expending labor to monitor. We are talking minute-by-minute monitoring, my friends. The way it must be done is by checking my motivation in everything. And when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING.

Me picking out clothes:
Me: I think I'm going to wear these yoga pants today with this tee shirt.
Holy Spirit: Why?
Me: Really? They're yoga pants, for Pete's sake.
Holy Spirit: Why?
Me: Ugh. Fine. Because they're comfortable and I only have three pair of pants that fit.

Holy Spirit: That checks out. Carry on.  

What does this have to do with 1 Corinthians 13? As I read this morning, my mouth dropped open as I read the very first verse.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become as a sounding brass or a clanging symbol. 

 Now many interpret this verse as a report on the importance of love. Love is so important. Without it most things just sound like things, but with love there is meaning and beauty in everything. But after reading the chapter and relating it to my life, I feel like the Holy Spirit has charged me to evaluate everything I say and do and measure it on a love meter. Many who have done any life reevaluation know that there are two widely accepted emotions from which all other emotions stem: fear and love. God's wish for us is to approach everything with his eyes. Peer through his lenses of love. Then and only then should you choose your next action, word, or thought.

So often we react to somebody or something without even considering why or where our motivation stems. We just react. Much of what we do is instinctive. I can recall times during my teaching career that I couldn't remember half the day at the end of the day because I had been on autopilot. I was out, and yet the lives of hundreds of teenagers rested in my hands daily. Notice how I said considering where OUR motivation stems. There is nothing you can do about the motivation of anyone else, and so focusing our attention on another's motivation is a waste of energy.

I've been given gifts, including the gift of guidance. I revel in the fact that my piano teaching ability goes way beyond my ability to actually play the piano. And so I teach. But daily I'm being tapped on the shoulder, and there's the Holy Spirit standing there with an eyebrow raised asking me that same irritating question - Why? Why do I teach? Do I teach out of fear that I won't make enough money to support myself and my babies? Or do I teach because I love my job, my students, music, and my babies enough to sit at that piano five plus hours a day and teach? And if it is solely fear-driven, how can I change my choice so that it begins to focus on the love aspect of it and not whether the next student remembers to bring me a check?

It makes a HUGE difference, friends.You can do the same thing for a hundred different reasons, and the results will not be the same. The energy you put into anything will inevitably cause the energy behind the action to produce results that - wait for it - have the same energy! True story! "Garbage in, garbage out", as they say. Love in, love out.

So how can you really make this work? Can one really approach scrubbing toilets or inputting data at work with love? Sure we can! It's more difficult to do that than it is to approach snuggling with a child on a couch or going on a date, but it is possible. The trick is to remember WHY we do these things and to search for Christ in everything. View things from his lenses. Pray constantly that He will provide you with the ability to see him in even the monotonous or terrible tasks. Honestly, the Lord has allowed me to see lessons in things that I've done this year that I had never even CONSIDERED. See things through curious eyes if you can't find the love. What comes next? How will God use this to teach me to grow?

When you think about each and every task as a growth experience or a learning experience, something starts to shift, and before you know it - even those tasks seem filled with a little more love. Namaste.