November 18, 2007
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Thanksgiving
Full, complete, surrender/obedience to God is so very hard. But it is a very exciting and peaceful place. I wish I could / hope I can spend more time there.
God gives, and then He takes away. He gives wonderful, beautiful, wholesome, delightful blessings, and then He withers them, kills them, rips them away and gives them to someone else. Not because He is cruel, but because He will do whatever it takes to fix my gaze and my hope upon Him. Because He loves me, and He knows that only if I am satisfied in Him will I be truly satisfied and filled-full.
Specifically, God has given and God has taken away in my life this year.
Am I "thankful"? Yes. I would like to go on record as saying, "Yes." I choose to be thankful. God IS good... so I have seen, and so I will continue to believe. As I said to a friend a while back, "I will learn in time to accept this as another good thing from God's hand." He has been kind and loving to me in the past, far beyond what I deserve, and I have reason to hope that He is being loving to me right now, even when I can't see it... and I have reason to believe He will be kind and loving to me in the future. Forever. Do I always feel thankful? No. I am a fickle and transient creature... an immortal soul loosely tethered to a wet carbon-based thinking-device with carbohydrate-powered actuators. I often feel fear and loss these days instead of trust/hope/joy, way too often as those who know me well can attest. I will probably tell you the details if you ask me how my life has been going, because I like to try to be honest about everything. But let me take this opportunity to state publically that God's goodness and mercy and kindness and blessings to/for/upon me have/do far outweigh the pains/losses/griefs He is leading me through.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
It is so hard to surrender everything to Him, to trust Him fully, to place my hope in the One who wounds me. But at those moments when I do, life is indescribably peaceful and satisfying despite living through extenuating or painful circumstances. It is the vase on the wheel, feeling a new sharply pointed instrument in the potter's hand, gasping and then whispering proudly, "The Lord is my Sculptor... I shall not want. I will be beautiful when He is done, and His reputation will shine," and humbly "I am not worthy of His patience... he should have crushed me back into the earth long ago." It is the difference between, in the middle of a crazy rollercoaster through the darkness, fear of what new terror the next turn may bring, versus razor-edged anticipation of what the next turn may bring, and ravishing exhilaration at the incredible ride.
And at the unspeakably awesome destination.
"If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are above all men most to be pitied."
Jesus answered and said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life."
Comments (2)
I'm sorry for your feelings of fear and loss...but am glad that you are still choosing to be thankful! I often wish that I were more inclined to feel thankful, but as you say, there are definitely times when it has to be a conscious effort and choice, and not my initial response. I'll pray that both of us could progress in that area!
It is always hard to be thankful, well for me to be truly thankful. I always seem to have a seed of discontent even in the midst of joy. And, when things are taken away, I can be a crabby thing. Oh, to purpose to praise the Lord. What a glorious Thanksgiving that would be--should be, can be!
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