Gratitude & Thankfulness

Such mixed feelings and a head full of random thoughts
I’m sitting in coach.
The cattle call of United flight 890
10 long hours from Tokyo to LA.
My back hurts.
My legs are falling asleep.
I’m melting down.
I can’t think straight.
I can’t make a list or even move.
I’m
Stuck like a sardine
With Tyler’s head in my lap.
Sweet teenager is still my baby.
I stroke his head
While wishing I could do something about all that is bouncing around my brain.
There’s nothing to do but sit here and pray.
Ask the Lord for sanity.
Ask the Lord for an organized mind.
Ask the Lord to give me grace
And peace
And rest.

Why are my natural responses to my circumstances
annoyance rather than thankfulness?
Afterall
This could be a box car taking me to Auchwitz.
Or I could be making this trip with a termial disease.
Or to attend the funeral of a loved one.
Why am I
Aggravated by being woken up for the airplane meal instead of thankful for food?


Now we’re home with parents who love us.
Thankful for their care, eating our first meal together in a nauseated daze,
trying to take in
that in their excitement to have us here for a year,
they’ve already scouted out the neighborhood
and want to point out to us what they’ve found in Pasadena.

Finding that they’ve stocked the apartment with a new coffee maker
and some groceries, and
that they hung a few family photos on the walls.
So sweet.

But I know that soon I will wrestle with my appreciation for the
Providence Missionary Homes.
Adjusting to 4 times less living space
minus personal space
Decorated with care and obvious special touches
That reflect someone elses’ tastes.

I’ll be asking for gratitude for a brown slipcover over the couch,
the thrift store furniture, 1970’s marble wall-to-wall shag carpet,
And dull kitchen knives.

Instead of being unspeakably happy that there are two bathrooms, not one,
I’ll be wondering how both big Jim and I will brush our teeth
without giving one another a black eye.

This is the new phase of life to the theme song, “Jesus Take the Wheel”
This is the new test of my willingness to choose gratitude and “take thoughts captive.”
This is new opportunity to submit to the Lord and let him rule and reign over my thoughts and actions,
See the miracle that his indwelling Spirit can turn my mourning into dancing,
and wait on him to give me a heart that in everything gives thanks.