My Journey with Gratitude

My
Gratitude Journal in Momento App.

According to the Momento app on my smartphone, it's been two years since I started a gratitude journal.  The challenge was to record three things a day for which I'm grateful.  I know many of us enter this discipline for the month of November, as I did in 2011, but I chose to continue this as a daily practice.  I began the venture partly inspired from having read "One Thousand Gifts" by Ann Voskamp and "The Grateful Heart" by Wilkie Au but mostly just having become aware of something true about me:  

I lacked gratitude.  

Certainly in my head I knew that God had given me much, but I didn't experience thankfulness in my heart, my very being, toward God for all His gifts to me.  Neither did I spend much time or effort giving thanks to all-giving God.  Habitually, every day for as long as I can remember, I have prayed a prayer of thanks for each of my children and my husband, now including my son- and daughters-in-law and grandchildren.  But for quite a long time, that was where my giving of thanks began and ended.  

How I longed to be changed in this area, for God's Spirit to remake my ungrateful heart into something new, a heart that was receptive to and recognized all it had received and a heart that in response to God's generosity returned often to say, "Thank you."  I desired to be like the newly cleansed leper, who "fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks."  Honestly, though, I just didn't see how this could happen.  I knew on my own strength I could not just "become grateful." It's impossible for me to change me!

It was then God invited me to meet with Him in the discipline of gratitude.

When I use the word "discipline" here,  I must clarify that "disciplined" is not a word that typically describes me, and that in itself is an understatement!  My husband used to joke that the only thing I did consistently was to drink a Diet Coke every day.  And at the time, he was right.  But when I look at discipline as a time of being discipled, or taught, by Christ, a time when He invites me to sit down with Him so that He can teach me gratitude, I am drawn to respond by entering into this adventure with Him.  I am not coming to Him with my heart just as it should be but rather just as it is -- sometimes thank-less, sometimes thank-some and other times thank-full!

"Thank-less" would entail those times when I come to Him totally grumpy and grumbling, bringing my complaints before Him and cannot find anything for which to give thanks.  I have an old journal from several years back wherein I recorded some struggling times, and in the margins I listed five things a day that I titled "Five things that I can stand about my life."  It later became "Five things that are okay about my life" then led to my desire to begin a gratitude list.

"Thank-some" is how I describe the things for which I am ready to say, "Thank you," but there's a huge concern attached to the giving of thanks.  For example, "Thank you so much for my job," and I really want to end there but continue, "but God, help me to get my transcripts completed," the emphasis being mainly on the concern on my heart.

And "thank-full" applies, of course, to those times where God's generosity is so evident to me that my natural response gushing forth with no effort is, "Thank you!"

I am learning that I needn't come thank-full in order to say, "Thank you," and that mysteriously in this encounter God has changed and is changing this previously not-so-grateful heart of mine.  I learn much about the heart of Jesus by experiencing His welcome of me, that acceptance of me just as I am, not as I wish I were.

 Whatever condition I'm in when I sit down with Christ during this time to which He's invited me to "reason together" He and I, to learn from Him, to allow Him to change me -- whether thank-less, thank-some or thank-full -- I let Jesus lead the time by asking Him to review the day with me and to show me what His gifts were to me from the day before (though some people may do this at the end of a day, looking over that day).  I then list the things for which I'd like to say, "Thank you," then thank Him for each one and sit for a few minutes in gratitude, a pretty special time between Jesus and me.  

Think of December 26, that day after Christmas when the gifts have all been opened, all still lying around to be enjoyed, delighted in, relished.  That's what this time is like:  an opportunity to look at the gifts from the previous day. What was unwrapped yesterday?  What was revealed about me? about God?   What did He give to me that I may have failed to notice?  What beauty made my heart skip?  What may have touched me in a deep way?

Two years after having begun the gratitude journal, my list has grown to include 573 entries.  My engineer hubby calculated this to equal 1.27 entries per day, and my goal was three per day. Some days I simply print in the margins of my journal and don't assign a number to those things for which I'm grateful.  And many days I don't "show up" at all.  Regardless of my not-so-glittering performance, Jesus with patience and kindness keeps extending that invitation to spend time with Him in this way.  Best of all, He continues to change me in the process.

And for that, I am extremely thank-full!

Diane Mann, 2013

Some Questions to Ponder:

What has your journey with gratitude been like?

Are you willing to enter into a "discipline" at which you may sometimes fail?  

Is it easy for you to come to Jesus just as you are, or do you tend to wait until you feel your heart is where it should be before you come to Him?

Is Jesus asking you to spend some time learning gratitude?  If so, together decide how this time would look.

You may want to spend time reading Luke 17:11-19 about the cleansing of the lepers and the one who returned to say, "Thank you."  What does this Scripture cause you to want to pray?

Layers

There it is again

That area I thought was healed

The ordeal I thought was done

The fight I thought was won

"Another layer," they say

Another layer of healing

Brought to the surface

Not so much the revisiting of an old wound

As a brand-new visit

Of a brand-new aspect

Of the same old wound

It feels like, here we are again

But here I am anew

Looking at another layer of me

Looking at another layer of You

I want to scream in frustration

At myself

For not getting over my issues

But Your Presence finally quiets me

Until at last we sit with what is

Sifting through it all

Together

My ineptitude, Your affirmation

My ingratitude, Your persistent generosity

My stubbornness, Your patience

My unforgiveness, Your mercy 

My recurring illness, Your hand of healing

My fierce anger, Your infinite kindness

My ceaseless "why's," Your ceaseless Presence

My exhaustion, Your breath reviving

Urging me to surrender 

To rest on your Big Love Ocean

To know You

To know me

To know You in me

And me in You

Again

And yet again

Within these layers

Of me

Discovering layers

Of You.

diane mann, 2013

My Father's Voice

As a little girl, when Sunday School was over, I'd dash to my parents' class, 
reach on my tippy toes to sneak some sugar cubes from their refreshment table then make my way through a jungle of tall people until I finally reached my dad, who would  pick me up with his strong arms. Back then, all the men wore dark-colored suits. Once after searching for a while, I found a pair of legs  I was sure were my father's. Hugging this leg tightly and fully expecting to find the rest of my father attached to it, I looked up only to discover it was not my daddy after all! 

What eventually would lead me to my father was his loud, booming voice. His laughter permeated the room far above that of any other noise, and that inevitably drew me to him.

Even when I became adult with children of my own, I'd hear my father's laugh in the church sanctuary and know he was there, which I always found comforting.

A strong voice, a thundering laugh. A sound that could be heard above the others. That was my father's voice.

Was. I say that because he broke his neck after falling from a roof.  He became completely paralyzed from his neck down and relied on a ventilator to supply his every breath. Being unable to move at all was harsh enough, but for the first two months following his injury, he also could not speak. 

I learned to read lips. Each day that I would enter his hospital room, I was 
able to see him mouth out "I love you" one more time. I read statements such 
as "Unbelievable," "Why?" "I will never move again," but the most memorable 
and important to me was, "I love you." That, followed by a strong kiss on 
my hand from him left me more than grateful for each visit, for each day. My 
dad thought he was useless at times, but he was giving out blessings right 
there from his hospital bed.

Funny. He had no voice, yet I was listening more intently than ever. 
"Dad," I would ask, "are you still the richest man in the world?" (as he 
claimed to be before his accident).

"I am," his lips would mouth silently.

Months later, after therapists had worked much with his equipment,  the day came 
that he was able to speak. With only my mom and a hospital worker 
present, the words he chose were, "Jesus loves me.  This I know."

So many messages are heard by us when we travel dark roads, when tragedy 
threatens to take over our lives. Without a doubt, the "Why me?" creeps in. 
Questions prevail about God's goodness or lack of it. Blaming others, 
blaming self. Messages of our own uselessness and helplessness can cripple 
us inside and leave us believing lies above the truth. 

Through all the times of questioning and doubt, however, there's a father's 
voice in the room. It leads you to Him, the One who will pick you up with 
His strong, welcoming arms. A persistent voice, one that we need to hear 
above all the others, saying, "I love you. This one thing I long for you to know." A 
voice that leads you straight to where you belong. There's no mistaking it. 
It's the voice of your father. Do you hear Him? 

Diane Mann

Treasures From the Trail, Part 8 - From Thanks to Praise

I remember not
The exact day of our hike
Nor the area in which we sat
But a boulder - some boulder
Somewhere
Beneath us
Seating us

I remember not
Whether it was Brent
Or I who said
"Let's say
What we're grateful for"

Feet dangling over the edge
Swinging as children's
No sensible rhythm
The popcorn of thanks
Began

One from me
Two from him
Pause
A burst of
Back-and-forth
Much like the beat
Of a toddler
With two drumsticks
Experimenting

Health, strength
To climb, gear
Flashlights, flame
On which to cook
Freeze-dried food
Shelter, air mattresses
Air, vibrant blue sky, luscious clouds
Trees that tell so many stories
And speechlessly preach
Of how we long to be

Unimaginable creativity of color
In the blossoms
Water that flows
That stays still
Inviting us to rest
Beside it

God, extremely good
Having ushered us
Through difficulties
Deaths, depression, illness yet
Therein rebirthing our love
And enjoyment
Of each other
And of Him
(The pain between two
Only those two can know
Likewise the miracle
Of healing and hope)

Silence
It seems we're finished
But sort of not
The time too sacred
To yet hem shut
And be done with it

"Let's sit with our thanks awhile"
I interject

Neither of us can say just when it happened
And certainly not how
For what human could contrive this?
But the thanks
Like morning mist
Lifting one particle at a time
Became rising raucous praise
Too rich for words

Like watching the
Finale of a fireworks show
We quietly witnessed
Gratitude
Transformed
To praise
Of the quietest, loudest kind

I remember not
Who
But one of us said
"Amen"
And we departed
From the rock
That hosted us
Never quite the same

This I shall always remember.

diane mann 2013