This Eucharisteo Life..

I started reading "One Thousand Gifts", by Ann Voskamp last week...and WOW. I had been reading her blog before realizing that she was the one who had written the book.... I guess every book has its "time"...you know, the "time" that you are "supposed" to read it, cause any other time would not be right, you would not be ready or it would not impact you in the same way. I admit, I'm usually someone who runs the other way when "the next thing" comes along and "everyone" is reading it or doing it. I let the hype settle down and go back later to explore...

So, I'm contemplating this "Eucharisteo" life and noticing God's gifts everywhere. And I smile and I laugh and I am knowing the joy of recognition of these things that speak His love..But it has uncovered a pride that I didn't see before...and it hurts. Because I hold back my thanks from God....somehow in my mind, I think that to say "thank you" means that I am telling Him that I'm okay with the way my life is...that I am okay with being single at 36 with no, even remote, prospect of a husband....that I'm okay with wanting to be a mom someday and obviously that isn't going to happen (at least biologically) unless that man does come and even though I want to adopt, I do not want to be a single parent....that I'm okay with my job, wondering what the heck my life is for and why He has me where I work, or even in the profession I'm in...that I'm okay with the way my body was made and that I don't turn heads, and that I'm getting older and things are just not the way they "should"be......To give thanks, goes against everything I feel and see, and so I hold back and turn away and stomp my feet and throw a baby-tantrum that my life is not what I'd thought it would be..

But in the end...that whole drama...just hurts me. This is the way I protect myself from hoping and being disappointed....AND...it's the way that I keep from having to live by faith. It makes me bitter...tightly pulled into myself and unable to love others or give anything of myself. It is the self-life....and my self is spent.

So I say "thank you"...sometimes, with joy and delight and lately.....with tears and cries and pain. Because sometimes, it is a sacrifice to let go and..... trust that God loves me and that all the things I see and feel are not necessarily true....that I can give of myself, whether it is praised, recognized, or accepted because I don't have to look to other people to tell me who I am....that He has a plan for my life that REALLY is good even when every circumstance seems to contradict that.   Because this world is not my home. Reality, TRUE reality, is in the spiritual realm and this is a battle. And God has said that I will fight this battle with thanksgiving and praise. It's not all sunshine and roses. But if I know nothing else about walking in His will, I know that it is and always will be His will to offer thanksgiving. And so even though I am failing to obey in just about everything, maybe in taking the baby steps of offering my thanks, the rest will start to work itself out. Because thanksgiving gives birth to humility....and God not only resides in praise but is with the humble and contrite in spirit. So, ultimately, He IS answering my prayer and I just didn't see it before....because His kindness in these gifts leads me to repentance...and this acceptance, though struggling, reveals His nearness. Isn't that something? He is answering the very things I have prayed for......

And today, one day, one moment at a time...I open my hands to receive and say "thank you, God" and I sing to the Lord, because He has dealt bountifully with me (Psalm 13:6).