The Melody of Thankfulness

I loved the rose I found in the celery stalk.... Seeing the beauty in small things!

Ahh, thankfulness. I have been exploring thankfulness or you could say running an in-home experiment this past week on the effects of thankfulness. I was reading “Created to Be His Help Meet” by Debi Pearl who says “thankfulness is how you think; joy is the abundance it produces”. I love this quote and decided it was time to intentionally be more thankful in my life.

Now, I love to think. I think more than might be good but I love it. This last week lent itself to many thinking hours during which I mulled over thankfulness: what it means to me, how much thankfulness I have had in my life, what true thankfulness is and some reflections on my experiment and its successes.

I think I have often exhibited thankfulness to some degree, however, I realized that much of it has had the wrong root and therefore did not produce any abundance of joy in my life. Let me explain. As a military wife, I am sometimes called upon to lend my awesome husband to the service of this country and say farewell for months at a time. It is not easy for me and brings with it plenty of opportunity to feel ungrateful. One of the well-meaning comments I get is to be thankful that he is not gone longer as many are. Now this is certainly something I can be thankful for but it seems to produce the wrong effect in me. The difficulties I encounter in his absence don’t grow wings and fly away as I would hope and my thankfulness is shaky at best. If he is gone for four months I can be thankful he is not gone for six months or a year but what happens if he is gone for a year? I would have to feed my thankfulness with the knowledge of someone whose husband is gone for two years. Do you see the constant battle? That thankfulness does not produce joy in me because it is rooted in comparison rather than in what I am blessed with right now no matter how small.

I never saw my thankfulness and its hollow insides quite this way before! I realized how important it is for me to be thankful for what I have rather than for what I have as it relates to someone else. Thankfulness needs to be genuine even if it is as small as a grain of sand. God is doing something special in my life and I risk missing so much of it unless I am in the habit of being thankful for the blessings sitting in my lap.

As this week progressed, I think I found the arch enemy of thankfulness in my life... selfishness. In almost every unthankful moment I can also clearly see my desire to take care of myself rather than anyone else around. I might even consider good things, things that are easy to be thankful for, to be my due. If that is my mindset then how on earth can I expect myself to appreciate anything small, anything tough, anything less than the best? My selfishness sets me up to never be satisfied and to never appreciate blessings in my life. It also sets me up to be dangerously close to judging the wisdom and love of God based on the appearance of obvious blessings.

In light of these thoughts, I have been focusing on finding something to intentionally be thankful for in the midst of the trying moments life has brought me this week. When we hit absolutely every red light I might be thankful for the blessing of driving a car and the blessing of a road and stop lights that allow traffic to move quickly. When the kids are having a not-so-good day I might expand my horizons and thank God for the opportunity to raise them at all. I am surprised at how many little things there are to be thankful for!

This week has turned out to be quite a joy. I have found so much to be thankful for and can truly say that thankfulness produces joy! I am delighted with the change in my own heart following those simple words: “Thank you for...”. I have had fun thanking my husband for the wonder he is to me, thanking my little ones for their contributions to our family, and most of all, thanking God for all his blessings. It has been so refreshing to see the small blessings instead of the shortcomings inevitably found in comparison and the frustration of unsatisfied selfishness.

I am so THANKFUL for all I have learned and that God blesses my seemingly small effort with such great joy!

“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Phl 4:6-7

Why Mornings?

Have you ever woke up to the alarm clock, rolled back over and convinced yourself there was truly no reason you really need to get up? After all, you could skip taking a shower and surely those errands you were going to run are not quite as important as you thought they were last night. You are exhausted from some truly worthy cause and thus you consider your need for sleep to be off the charts in both necessity and entitlement. You doze off to sleep only to be caught in that in-between zone as you hear little ones begin to stir.  You just know you should be getting up but you are determined now to get that sleep-in prize you just awarded yourself moments before. The clock happily ticks along eating up time and eventually you must give in to the morning thanks to the stinky diaper that just welcomed itself to your bed or some other waking gift.

I don't know if any others have this same dilemma from time to time but it truly has been hitting me hard these last few months.  In fact, I don't think I have set an alarm clock more than five times this year! I can attribute some of this trouble to a sad lack of necessity for getting up... or so I thought.  Since I homeschool I am unfortunately lacking in concrete wake-up accountably such as bus schedules or school hours so I have let it slide.  Ironically, these last few months have been some of my roughest mothering months.  I have felt out of touch and behind.  School, which would ordinarily pass quickly and joyously has been known to plow right into dinner time, even making it to 8:00pm some nights!  Yikes!

All the while there has been a small memory shining in the back of my befuddled brain begging me to listen to its wisdom.  Having always considered myself a morning person, I have lots of experience with getting up early and loving it.  Although I wouldn't take the time out of my perpetually late day to think of these sweet morning memories, I knew the answer to some of my troubles were hiding there.  I have always loved Proverbs 31, particularly verse 15 and now it was beginning to come to my mind rather often.

She also rises while it is yet night, and provides food for her household, and a portion for her maidservants. Proverbs 31:15

I knew a change was needed.  I just didn't want to make it!  Unfortunately I let my motivation build up in the wrong way. Day after day, we struggled through the morning.  Nate, who had taken leave earlier in the year to work on our house, was fully back at work and had to leave on time.  It was difficult to get him out the door and oh so easy to blame the delay on the kiddos who would not get ready in time to have breakfast with him.  Surely it was their fault that we were late with breakfast.  After all, I had been working so diligently ever since I woke.  I didn't have time to joyously help the little ones find their clothes or brush their teeth.  I was making breakfast or setting the table and why oh why would they not come in time to help?

As much as I didn't want to admit it, I knew the problem wasn't in my diligence or the lack of diligence and speed in the children but rather in my lack of time.  I should have been working diligently before I woke!  Oh the excuses that suddenly rose to the surface to make themselves known!  I was tired.  The baby was not sleeping well.  I was working so hard into the evening that I didn't get to bed early enough.  I had to get up in the night. And on and on they went.

As I mentioned, my motivation built up in a form I am sad to admit; in the form of a rightly frustrated husband whose wife had failed to truly help him. I am called to be his helper and I knew that much of his difficulty to make it to work on time lay squarely on my shoulders. He was, after all, trying to bless me and the kids by making time to have breakfast with us (something I love!) and I was, in the name of exhaustion, tired mommy and entitlement, making that expression of love a true frustration to him.

We decided to make some changes in our morning beginning with an alarm clock at 5:30.  We also set the kids alarms so they would wake earlier.  I had always thought what a joy it would be to have kids who sleep in as mine used to be faithful early risers and now that they were sleeping in I was going to set an alarm.  I must be loosing my mind!

The first morning of alarms rolled around.  It was difficult to get up and I felt a sudden moment of panic thinking that my kids were going to woke up about a hour earlier than they had been waking.  Would it work?  Would I get caught in the middle of getting ready and kids needing my assistance?  Well, the morning went beautifully!  I was fully ready for my day by the time the kids alarm went off, was able to help them get ready for their days and they, in turn, were able to help get breakfast on the table in time.  That was only the beginning of the far-reaching effects of waking just 45 minutes earlier.  The whole day went faster.  School was half way done by the time we had been struggling to start in the days prior.  The kids were aware of their helpful contribution and were able to feel like they had succeeded and could be proud of their efforts.  This translated in much more energy, willingness and joy for learning and a much happier teacher/mommy!

It has been a few days since and I am daily surprised at the change getting up early can make in my day!  In all honesty, I seem to gain a couple of hours at least!  I have had time to nap, time to cook leisurely, time to run errands, time to do laundry, time to smile at my kids and read books to the little ones, and so on. My befuddled brain has cleared and rather than dashing behind the to-do list, I can write it out with a smile and accomplish it at my leisure. I love it!

God knew what he was saying when he encouraged me to get up and prepare food for my household. (Proverbs 31:15)  He knew what he was saying when he warned me that turning on my bed was laziness. (Proverbs 26:14) He knew that he loves me and that he wants the best for me, for my family, for my husband and that the simple act of getting up would some day be important to me as a wife and mother!