My Journey

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I am a Jesus-follower, a minister, and a mom. I'm trying to be good at a lot of things and often this exhausts me. I love my kids, my husband, my church and my life. I want to share my journey with others, so this is my blog.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Sleepy Thanksgiving Thoughts


My sister-in-law, Jessica (aka Martha Stewart) made adorable leaf sugar cookies in cellophane baggies to go at each place setting for Thanksgiving (should I mention she’s hosting over 25 people?). Attached to each bag is the simple text “In Everything, Give Thanks” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Lying in bed this morning, enjoying a rare chance to sleep in while my mom watched the boys, I got to thinking about that text.

“In Everything Give Thanks.”

In. Not after, not once I look back, not once things are all hunky dory, but In. In the midst of everything. Waiting for my house to close, not sure what’s happening with my job, In the midst of this, give thanks. Don’t wait. Do it In.

Everything. Really God, Everything? When I’m exhausted and my baby is in a mommy phase and no one else can take him so I can’t go anywhere alone – everything? What about Adam’s coworker’s son who isn’t even 3 and had major spinal surgery? What about that my brother and sister-in-law’s cat got killed yesterday, the day before Thanksgiving? That’s where the first word comes back into play. We don’t give thanks “For Everything”, we give thanks “In Everything.” Everything.

Give. Giving thanks isn’t about me. It’s about God, it’s about others. It’s a completely selfless act. I don’t keep anything for myself. When I give thanks I recognize that I don’t deserve what I have, I just appreciate. I Give.

Thanks. Total appreciation. A simple word that just says I am unworthy, but God has given me all I need. I can do nothing to deserve what God has given in God’s Grace. And all I can say is Thanks.

In Everything, Give Thanks.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

change

I haven't blogged in a while. Truthfully, I haven't felt like it. Our life has changed and changed and changed again, yet as a stay-at-home mom now, I feel that I live day by day with no depth. I'm happy, but I don't feel very deeply right now. It's hard to blog with no feeling.
My lack of feeling applies to my spiritual life. No depth. I know to have more depth I need to spend time in spiritual things. Hard to do. I thought I had a great solution. Join a local (awesome) gym with cheap daycare and listen to spiritual podcasts (I love me some Rob Bell sermons!). The second time I tried this, Finn was screaming within the first 5 minutes. I'm currently trying to cancel my membership. I read psalms on my iphone while I rock Finn to sleep. That's nice, but without time, discussion, or journaling it stay very surface-y.
Today I was listening to Christian music on the radio. The song said "You always hold on." My 3 year old (or will be 3 on Friday!) asked me what it was about. I said it was about Jesus staying close to us. He said "It says he hold's on. Why?" I said Jesus loves us so much that he always holds on to us and never lets go. I thought about that for me. No matter how unfeeling I am about my spiritual life right now, Jesus holds on. I'm not sure how I "feel" about that, but it's true and today I'm trying to focus on that truth.