This morning I woke up ready to write a little more about gratitude. The Thanksgiving season is over and we start the frenzy of Christmas. I woke up with a headache and sinuses stuffed… Do you suppose that is what happens to our good intentions? Life? We walk away from service with warm fuzzy hearts and a new way to look at life and then the vacuum breaks and the leaves are downing the front yard and the child needs supplies for school and then there is no milk for tomorrow’s breakfast. Life drowns out and buries all those intentions we took out of Sunday service. But I still will work to remember….
My heart is still warmed by church on Sunday.. the sermon actually being taught by those brave enough to take the microphone and speak their hearts. Many like me came prepared with something to share but waited to hear others. They had so many wonderful things to say, I had a hard time controlling my emotions. My contribution paled and I am glad I was quiet.
But it is difficult living in that emotional place. We think that those who cry so easily are hormone imbalanced or worse. Do you suppose our culture does not like to see gratitude, except for the cursory, “thanks”? Emotion involves our hearts….ties our heart to our brains, maybe even our soul. Maybe it is the antithesis of worldliness. Emotions requires something of us.. even if it is just to acknowledge how deeply we feel.
This life of gratitude calls us to be real and true. And it takes something special for us to see and acknowledge that something profound has happened. For example, the care pages have been a source of gratitude… not just for the subject of the care page, but for all those who read and who pray and who get to see prayers answered. Then, yesterday we heard from some individuals who felt they had been homeless and lost and the church family picked them up and held them. Their problems have not all be solved by the church community but they faced them not alone. I think that is a key to our community. We are not problem solvers.. we are the problem facers.
I look back to the time I met Linda C and that is exactly what happened. She had a new big problem in her life and had to figure out how to move forward. I too had a problem…and without her help would never have moved forward. We were Jesus to each other. Recently, I also faced who I would have been had she not invested the time in me to be my friend.
The church community is sometimes hard.. families are hard. It is fine when I am giving. You know why? Because while giving I am in control. I know how much I will invest and it is me who decides. Giving is playing god. How must the Father feel as He provides and fulfills and meets the needs of His children? Well maybe when I give, I feel just a bit of that. But what happens when it is I that has a need? Selfishly I hold my need close to my heart. It is hard to wait on others (God?) to fill my need. I figure out how not to need. I be quiet. I suffer. I cry out to God, silently of course. Because if He uses people I know to fill my need, I will have to live with gratitude.
Because in the end… that need fulfilled requires a response of gratitude. Express it. That is hard and we try hard to avoid it. If our need was real must our gratitude be real? Is it like and E=Mc2? The depth of one requires the intensity of the response?
And the reason those things are important is because of the following: We were lost. We were sinners. God sent his son and He saved us. Because of Him we have the promise (not the hope… the promise) of eternal life. Is not our response to be gratitude? We had big sin, a big need, and our response should be big gratitude. It is all about the gratitude baby! God is good and we have been blessed but it is big.. E=Mc2 big. DKU
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