Day 27 Check-in

Let’s chat about gratitude for a moment. 

Late last week I received some pretty rotten family news, the kind that initially takes your breath away and causes your hand to involuntarily cover your heart.  My family has endured a lot in the last year, particularly the last two months and from the looks of things, we will continue to traverse a rocky landscape.

I suppose each of us is learning what we’re made of and how deeply we can dig when extreme digging is necessary.

After I took the phone call delivering the news, I did some online research and then called my sponsor.

I said, simply, “I don’t know what to do.”

Her immediate response was threefold:  Pray, find gratitude in the situation and then trust that everything that needs to happen will happen.  In other words, let God be God.

My sponsor is a wise woman.  I realized in that holy instant from a grace-filled conversation, the thing that may be my greatest lesson in this 30 Days of Presence.  Every life trial and tribulation boils down to trust and determining just how big our (my) belief in God is.  And if I discover my God isn’t big enough, which usually is the case and is discovered through severe obstination (yes, I just created a word), then I need to make my God bigger.

Jabez asked God to enlarge his territory.  And Philippians 4:6 reads, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6).

Where does gratitude enter this spiritual picture?  There was a time, years ago, when anything related to a higher power, or anyone who suggested that I pray, would have caused me to mentally roll my eyes while quickly taking my leave of the person or idea.

Yes, my family is going through tough times.  I’m sad and worried and want to clutch all of them tightly to my heart. 

We can’t know why bad things happen to good people.  But God does know and for tonight, in this moment of presence, that’s good enough for me.  Peace and blessings to my loved ones.

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