Giving Thanks A Challenge & The M.O.M. Initiative Monday Link Up!

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“. . . give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5:18

My heart felt raw and prickly – as if somehow the circumstances of my life had ripped a layer of skin off my soul and left a raw pulsating mass. It wasn’t one big event, but the bumps and hard knocks of a multitude of tiny things that resulted in one irritated mass in the center of my chest.

My refrigerator was on the blink, coursework weighed heavy, and my house was a disaster. I sat in front of my computer typing away frantically trying to finish something.

You are not doing anything well. My thoughts wandered adding acid to my already irritated heart. Why do you think God has called you to write or speak or anything? How could He use you?

In the midst of the crazy mundane and the big terrible of life God calls us to do something contrary to our very nature. He tells us to “give thanks.” We try to get around it. We don’t actually give thanks for the mundane, no just “in” the mundane. After all God would never call us to thank Him for dirty toilets, right?

Yet perhaps that is just what He means. Ann Voskamp says it in her book One Thousand Gifts, “I want to see beauty. In the ugly, in the sink, in the suffering, in the daily, in all the days before I die, the moments before I sleep.”

There is beauty in the refrigerator hanging on for life. Beeping as it attempts to restart and keep its contents cold. It teaches me that starting over and over again is ok. It is when I do not try that I truly fail. Perhaps there is even something to be thankful for in the midst of deadlines and coursework. I find deeper understanding of God the One who bends low to be in relationship with me. If I think long enough it knocks me to my knees.

Perhaps all this raw pulsating mess is because I failed to give thanks in all circumstances. Ann also says, “Our fall was, has always been, and always will be, that we aren’t satisfied in God and what He gives. We hunger for something more, something other.” My heart is raw because I am tripping over my hunger for something more or something other than what God has given me.

I somehow think I deserve a refrigerator that doesn’t break or coursework that I can breeze through. I ache that sometimes it is difficult to get it all done and yet I want more or something different. I realize this doesn’t make sense, but it is true. I want more or something else. I am not satisfied with what God has given me and so I do not thank Him.

Ann goes on to say, “And when I give thanks for the seemingly microscopic, I make a place for God to grow within me.” There it is. Giving thanks in the microscopic or even in the gargantuan makes a place for God to grow in us. When God is growing in me I can hear Him speak. He says, “I am here. I have plans for you. I will work all things for good. I love you. I am able.”

This does not mean my heart stops aching, growth often means stretching and growing pains. It does, however, mean that I am growing closer to God and I can find joy and give thanks in all circumstances. After all, this is God’s will for us in Christ Jesus.

So I dare you to start a list of things you are thankful for right now. Perhaps even post on Facebook a list of things you are thankful for each day during the month of November. Maybe this will begin a habit for us all and we will live thankful and joyful lives and teach our kids to do the same.

By: Angela Mackey

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Stephanie Shott
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