Tag: thankful

Thank You

Two simple words. But they can completely revolutionize our mindset and thinking. Truly, they can.

Years ago, I struggled through some pretty dark depression. My mind swirled with negative thoughts. They waged a war on me, especially in the dead of night. When I look back on those days, I see darkness overshadowing my memories, almost like it was always 4pm on a cold November day.

‘Thank you’ got me out of those days. ‘Thank you’ transformed my thoughts from dark and negative to grateful and full of joy. Please believe me when I say, ‘Thank you’ can save your life.

My counselor had me write three things at the end of each day that I was thankful for. I had a journal next to my bed and every night when I crawled into bed, I’d click on my bedside lamp and grab my journal and pen. And then I’d sit there in bed, pen hovering over blank paper, racking my brain for anything I could possibly say thank you for.

Some nights my list looked like this:

Thank you that I made it through today. Thank you for my family. Thank you for good food.

That list could take me 15 minutes to come up with. It was half-hearted and a struggle. But I did it. Every night. Mostly because I was willing to try anything to feel better and win the war against negative thoughts ruining my life.

What I didn’t realize in the midst of it, but can look back now and see, was that I was slowly but surely rewiring my brain. Did you know that when you choose to be thankful and grateful you actually cause new connections to be made in your brain, until those connections become your regular pathways? You actually change how your brain functions.

After a few months of doing this, it hit me that it was coming naturally. And not just at bedtime when I HAD to do it, but all day. I was starting to see things I could be thankful for in everyday occurrences without effort. I was becoming an optimist, just because I forced myself to be thankful. Suddenly, I didn’t have to force it anymore. It had become a part of me and had made me a better person.

This last year has been a hard one. We’ve faced a lot of change. God told me this past summer he was sifting.

But you know what, I am thankful. I have so much to be thankful for that I haven’t hardly had time to feel anxious or worried over what’s to come. Isn’t that cool? I’m telling you, choosing to be thankful has some consequences.

Consequences like an unquenchable joy, a deep trust in the One who loves me, and no room for anxiety. I’m not making this up!

Today, I can say Thank you, God, that we’ve had four months with Andrew at home with us. Thank you for giving Andrew his joy, health, and energy back and healing him from burn out. Thank you for providing while we trust. Thank you for a sweet new grandbaby. Thank you for true friends who have walked this journey with us every step of the way. Thank you for sifting out the good to make room for the great. Thank you for protection over us while we haven’t had insurance. Thank you for people who truly ask how we’re doing and not just how the job search is going. Thank you for being a great God who we can trust through anything and who never leaves us nor forsakes us. Thank you for making us thankful.

This list could go on and on and flows through my fingers as naturally as a stream babbling along.

If thankfulness doesn’t come naturally for you, start fighting for it. Right now, today. Grab a journal and a pen and force yourself to be thankful. Pretty soon, you’ll find you don’t have to force yourself anymore. Suddenly, one day, you’ll realize you’re just thankful all the time.

Sifting

Have you ever read a recipe where it calls for you to sift flour? I think it’s a step that’s gone by the wayside in most recipes, but every once in a while I still come across it. Honestly, I often skip the step. But I do have a handy little tool to sift if I choose to. It was probably much more widely used before machinery was improved to sift things out in the factory before the flour made it to us. Now, we get pretty clean, fine flour easily.

We sift to take out the large clumps and debris so our recipe turns out right.

A friend, when she moved to a new house, took all the dirt her hubby had dug out for a window well and sifted all the rocks out of it to make the dirt useable for a garden. It was a grueling task, and one she wouldn’t want to repeat.

I heard this recently: we often think when people, jobs, opportunities, good things are taken from our lives we blame Satan. We think it’s the adversary working evil in our lives. And sometimes that can be true. But, nine times out of ten, it’s actually God sifting.

We don’t like sifting when it happens in our lives. It feels painful, like grueling, backbreaking work. We want it to stop. We even fight it with all we have. But God works all things together for our good. That means sifting is for our good.

The Bible refers to it as pruning. If you have fruit trees, you know the amount of pruning involved. Every winter I take 50% of the branches out of my trees. It feels like so many and it seems awful. It’s also a lot of work. But in the end, it reaps a harvest of much greater magnitude than we could imagine.

Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

John 15:2

If we could look into the future and see what God has in store for us when he’s sifting, we would definitely stop fighting it, even if it feels painful in the moment. Which means we should probably have enough faith in the moment to allow it to happen.

As I’ve thought about this summer, the word sifting keeps coming to mind. God keeps removing. I can’t say I’ve just accepted it and not fought it. There have been so many moments where I’ve asked, “What are you doing, God?” And not in a nice, questioning way, but in more of a “are you serious right now?” kind of way.

This past week, God sifted again. He removed Andrew’s job.

The emotions for me have been a rollercoaster. Andrew has just been overjoyed, relaxed, and back to the Andrew I knew and loved. I honestly didn’t even realize how burned out he had gotten until I’ve seen him back to his old self this past week.

It hasn’t been easy. First God removed the garden and our CSA. Then Andrew’s job. I’m not sure what He’s doing, but I do know He is good all the time. I do know I can trust Him with all my heart. I do know He is on His throne. I do know He knows what He’s doing. And I keep telling myself those truths because I refuse to live in the sadness, fear, or anxiety that can creep in. God has always provided for us and I know He always will.

For now, I know God has been telling our family to rest. He’s forced it upon us really. And it’s been so good and so sweet. We have time to play and get in the pool with our kids. We have time for having people over. We have time for each other. Andrew is smiling and joking again. We’re taking advantage of this time God has gifted us as a family with Daddy home everyday. It’s a true blessing to have so much time with him after years of 60-70 hour work weeks.

And so, in the midst of the sifting, I’m thankful. Thankful that our good good Father knows our every need and blesses us with it in ways we couldn’t imagine. After the shock wears off, we can be thankful. Thankful for time, laughter, projects getting done, good sleep, family fun. Thankful our God loves us so much that He sifts.