As I look back, it has been several years that God has been teaching my heart the lesson of giving thanks. The past 4 years, though, He has especially stepped in and worked on my heart in serious ways in this area. As He revealed sin and struggle and convicted my soul....as I turned to Him for help...the answer so many times was to start with an attitude of thankfulness.
He has used people, books, blogs and most importantly His Word to show me time and time again that my ungrateful approach to things was robbing me of JOY.
When I got pregnant with the twins, I struggled deeply. I was so conflicted between knowing that I was blessed and that another child was a privilege but I was also buying into the lies that this additional child was a burden that I hadn't signed up for. It wasn't part of my plan and I struggled with surrendering and just allowing God to use me for His plan.
I had reasons. I was allowing ideas to turn into discontentment. I wanted more space and more money and more comfort and more luxury and I wanted things to be about me. I was quick to see where things were not what I had envisioned and linger there, allowing the void to bring discouragement and worry and doubt.
At some point along the way, though, God drew me out of this. He brought me to a point...to a choice. I could continue to be miserable. Or I could look at the things He was doing. The things He had already done. And I could CHOOSE to THANK Him. As I said before, this has been a process and He has grown me so much. A few years ago, my struggles with discontentment were regular and I'd find myself drowning in them at times. Now, THANKS BE TO HIM, that He has shown me the WAY of thanksgiving and the struggles are few and far between.
And so, He has been teaching me to be thankful regularly. I want to write more often. I want to record our days. I want to have something to look back to. But most of all, I want to remember the many gifts He's given. I want to remember all I have to be thankful for.
Ann Voskamp writes here: www.aholyexperience.com and also authored the book One Thousand Gifts. She encourages and challenges to write down our gifts. Be thankful for them outloud on paper. And so begins my thankfulness journal: http://thebrownsgivehimthanks.blogspot.com/
2 comments:
This describes almost my exact emotional, spiritual journey with my boys too. I wasn't happy until I stopped having negative thoughts like, "this would be so much easier with just one" "I didn't sign up for this" etc, and thanked God for my blessings. Great post!
Hey Krystal- Thanks for commenting : ) I remember writing on your blog when your boys were itty-bitty. How are our babies growing up so fast?! Isn't it so much more fun to look at things with a thankful perspective? I am glad that He used such an AMAZING blessing of twins to teach me to be thankful always! We never know what other circumstances we won't "ask for" that we'll find ourselves in...and to know that we can ALWAYS be thankful is something I am glad to have learned!
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