Gratefulness

 Do you ever get a little bit down? I do sometimes. I get overwhelmed. I get scared about the future. I get frustrated with the present. I get rueful about the past. I get mad or sad or disappointed in the people around me.

Maybe you feel a little bit like that right now. A few years ago I turned a phrase that I was proud of: Try this year to enjoy the holidays instead of letting the holidays enjoy you. But I find that, almost inevitably, I end up rushing through from November 1 to January 1, chasing down all the stuff I meant to do and not ever really observing the season.

That's one reason this blog post about gratefulness is a week early. After all, next week is Thanksgiving, but I am going to take some time off next week and rest and prepare for the Advent season, so I won't be writing a blog next Wednesday.

Another reason this post is a week before Thanksgiving is that we really need to start early to make any sense of Thanksgiving. My family, like many of yours, I imagine, has a tradition of saying something for which we are thankful around the table before our Thanksgiving meal. It is good to share those things then, but it would also be good to share them all the time.

I am thankful for my family. I have an incredible wife and two fabulous children. We have two dogs at home and one that went to college. I am thankful for my parents and Joy's parents and our extended family.

I am thankful that I have work that allows me to have a nice home and many extra things that I take for granted. I am thankful that the work I do is meaningful to the people with whom I share it. 

I am thankful that I have relatively good health and am able to do lots of things that I don't usually even notice as abilities.

I am thankful for the many people around me to work to make sure that my work and life is better.

There are many more things for which I am thankful. My list is certainly different from yours, but having taken time to jot down a few of the things for which I'm thankful, those irritating things that I mentioned at the beginning of this blog have migrated to the back of my mind.

It seems simplistic to say this, but that really is a practice that would help us to be more fulfilled in our daily lives. Just taking time to call to mind all the things we are grateful for can change a frustrating day into a beautiful one.

I pray it may be so for you. 

Winter and Growth...

I had a wonderful lunch with a good friend and fellow pastor yesterday. That's something I rarely do, unfortunately. We had great and very honest conversation about things going on in our personal lives, our family lives, and in the lives of our congregations. After speaking with my friend, as I was driving home, I had a vision.

As those in the Middle Tennessee area will know, the past few days have been a foretaste of the cold air of Winter. I have been watching for the temperature to fall below freezing, because we have some banana tree plants in our backyard. This year we got some tiny bananas! First time! So I wanted to be prepared to cut them down when the cold weather got here and see if we have anything to eat. 

An interesting thing about these banana trees... the stalks are not like trees we would normally think of. They are much less rigid. This morning, when I did harvest those bananas (harvest is probably not the best word... That makes it sound like a huge crop or something...) I just pulled on the stalk they were on and it broke off in my hand. 

As seemingly fragile as this might be, these same banana trees were planted near to a paved walkway in our backyard. They grew up around it, through it, and over the top of it. The pavers are standing on their sides because of the growth of these seemingly fragile plants.

Every winter the banana tree plants die. But if I cut them off at ground level and then take a little care to cover them with sand or soil, in the Spring they come back to life. These particular plants started with two given by a member of our church choir about two years ago, and now we have dozens of these plants, springing up, breaking the pathway, and giving us fresh (if tiny) bananas.

We all go through seasons. Maybe this is a season of winter in your life. Maybe it is a season of winter in your career or in your emotions or in some other part of your life. Spring is coming. It always does.

And with the Spring comes new growth. That new growth may tear down some of the things that are established in your past--like my paved walkway. Maybe those things are ready to be torn apart and replaced by something living, something growing, something beautiful. Sometimes we have to let those old things be torn apart so the new can appear.

Winter stays for a season. It's a bit more predictable in the seasons of the year, but it still only stays for a season in our lives. When the Winter is past, new growth comes. 

Get ready for Spring!