thanksgiving precedes the miracle

This weekend i started thinking alot about past relationships. I started to regret them. I started to think that it's not better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. I started to get angry. Ungrateful.

I'm still making my way through the book One Thousand Gifts. Ann Vosakamp reminds us, just as Paul does, to learn to be content no matter the circumstances. But it's so hard. Gratefulness in the midst of the storms of life. But how? I want to be thankful. I want to live thankfulness. In its essence, it really would mean living more fully. How can i be joyful in every situation? How can i be joyful with a heart that is aching? I think that it takes practice, like everything else. Maybe it means being thankful for the small things. The every day things. Then gradually, perhaps it will get easier to be thankful in the harder situations.

She writes:

i would never experience the fullness of my salvation until i expressed the fullness of my thanks every day, and eucharisteo (thanksgiving) is elemental to living the saved life...all those years thinking i was saved and had said yes to God, but was really living the no. Was it because i had never fully experienced the whole of my salvation? Had never lived out the fullest expression of my salvation in Christ? Because i wasn't taking everything in my life and returning to Jesus, falling at His feet and thanking Him. I sit still, blinded. This is why i sat all those years in church but my soul holes had never fully healed. Eucharisteo, the Greek word with the hard meaning and the harder meaning to live--this is the only way from empty to full.

Wow. Maybe i can learn to be grateful so that He can begin to fill those "soul holes." I was in yoga class on saturday and my mind began to drift to the dark place of sadness. The place that feels lonely. The place that regrets. And just then i believe God used the instructor to give words that were for me. She closed the class by telling us that the past helped to open up our hearts to loving, so we should not regret past relationships. The past, she said, has helped you get to the place you are today. It's helped in your growth.

Maybe today i begin to live the "yes." I can say yes to God's goodness. To his grace. To his mercy. I can be thankful. I can trust that He knows what he's doing. He's always known. I can learn to be thankful. And expectant upon the miracle.