Thankful

It's hard.

It's hard to be thankful when you don't know when your next paycheck is coming (or from where). It's hard to be thankful when your best friends are 900 miles away. It's hard to be thankful when your office is the most central location of your parents' home, when your internal clock has no idea what time of the year it is, or when you don't have any idea what your calendar will look like even a month from now. It's hard to be thankful; it's easy to host a pity party.

Every once in awhile, I let the tears roll. They're good. They're healthy. But once they come, they're hard to stop.

Like Job, I speak bluntly and harshly to the Lord. While it's nice to get those feelings out on paper, it doesn't usually solve much. (Did I just say that out loud?) I still don't know what's next. I'm still playing pin the tail on the donkey.

And still even here, I have a lot to be thankful for. Did I not wake up this morning breathing and refreshed? When I rolled over and put my feet on the floor, did they not stay there and hold my weight? (No peanut gallery comments, please). Was there not toothpaste in the tube, toilet paper on the roll, and soap in the dispenser? Is there food in the pantry and hot water in the shower? Do I have a jacket, shoes, and gasoline?

Have I not people who love and care about me? People who encourage me and pour into me? Scripture tucked away in my heart? Is the Lord not in this limbo, this barren desert, this hideous time in between?

Life is hard. Yet still there is so much to be thankful for even if they're the small, simple things we tend to take for granted. Even if it's the tears and the angry words. Even if it's the promise, "I will be with you always to the very end of the age" (See Matthew 28).

Even if nothing else goes correctly, that one reason alone is enough to bring thanksgiving to my lips again and again.

<>< Katie

Hard

It had been a long day.  The car said I'd been on the road for 31 minutes but it felt like considerably longer.  I'd left my house fourteen hours earlier and hadn't been home since.

I'll be honest, I was starting to feel sorry for myself and my long day.  While parts of it (like dinner!) were really nice, but other parts (like repeatedly trying to convince a 5 year old to share) weren't so nice.  I was exhausted and on the brink of tears for no apparent reason.

I needed to make a phone call to some friends.  Since I knew they go to bed early (and were an hour ahead) I contemplated calling them while driving, something I rarely (one might say "never") do.  Even though it meant missing them tonight, I'm so glad I waited.

Instead, as I pulled into my subdivision, my phone lit up.  On the other end, I found my friend Kevin.

He himself on his way home after a very long day... except after work he joined a friend at a hospital bedside where he stayed until he called me.  Tomorrow, he's getting up to do it all over again. 

"They haven't gotten any good news lately, and don't except to," he said.

Instantly my self-pity washed away.  I felt so convicted that I was upset over my fourteen-hour day that I planned myself when he was dealing with a longer, unplanned day.

We spoke for forty minutes.  There were no tears.  But there was a lot of honest confession and sympathizing with each other.  "This is hard," we must have each said fifteen times.  But almost as many times we said how God has worked and is working through hard.

In the words of the five year old who refuses to share, "Don't do easy things.  Do hard things."

Let's do hard.  Let's do it for His glory.  And let's not feel sorry for ourselves in it.

I don't know about you, but I needed that reminder today and every day.

<>< Katie

PS: Check out my friend Hannah's blog about a Bulgarian Sunrise.  It was another reminder I needed.  Hannah's on the World Race right now so they're ministering in eleven different countries in the next eleven months.  Wow!