Everyone who enters our home is greeted by a sign that says “May all who enter here be welcomed as Christ.” It’s a promise to them and a reminder for us. Everything we have, both exterior and interior, is a gift from the Lord and we are called to share it with those along our journey, bringing them closer to Him through this recognition.
I am pondering this as I sit watching leaves turn color outside my windows, reminding us that seasons have cycles. Our lives are seasons and as we walk through times of joy, sorrow, suffering, wonder and awe, I have found it life changing to embrace it all with a profound sense of gratitude. We often think of what we have to share as physical, but the reality is that most growth in relationships happens when we share the intangible, the interior and the personal.
Gratitude in the beautiful is easy. I can sit on my front porch and watch my children throw a frisbee while I sip tea and thank the Lord for this moment of them being connected and engaged with each other. I am beyond grateful for the relationships they are forming with each other outside of me. I see the Lord working and smile, for His plans are so much bigger than my own. Thank you, Father.
I can wake up in the morning, roll over and be in awe of the man I have the privilege of spending every day with. I close my eyes and in awe and laughter quietly call out to the Lord,” Are you kidding me that life is this rich and beautiful? How good you are to me!”
At night, as my children file down to my room to say good night and one by one share their thoughts, my heart literally overflows in amazement with the abundance of God’s generosity for this family I have been given. I am able to see the love my husband and I poured out for so many years (and continue to do so) being poured back into us. Lord, forgive my worry. Lord, forgive my doubt. I am not deserving of this love, but you continue to show yourself in it. Thank you. Gratitude in the beautiful is easy.
Having a heart of gratitude in the suffering is painful and profound. It stretches you, breaks you and builds you back up. Gratitude for me is the rope I cling to that keeps me bound to the Lord.
As parents, we walk through seasons where our children are pushing, challenging or perhaps even so caught up in the holds of this world that we lose touch with them. What is there to be grateful for then?
We can get caught up in worry and doubt. Hindsight is 20/20, we are told, and it is so true. I’m reminded of the Footprints prayer where the author wonders where the Lord was in all of his suffering and in a moment of privileged conversation, the Lord reminds him that in times of sorrow and suffering He was carried; it is the Lord’s footprints in the sand that walk the path.
You see, God is working for us, in us, and for those we carry so tenderly on our hearts through it all, and living a life of witness to that trust is the crux of being a Christian. In seasons of sickness where my husband and I have passed like ships in the night bouncing from hospital to hospital tending to our kids, we have passed notes, sent each other meals, marveled at God’s provision, even when the path ahead is unknown.
Often, we are asked, how can you be so joyful? What is it you have? Ahh, friend, it is not what we have but rather Whom we know. We know Jesus.
Our lives are a witness story — and like the two men who journeyed on the road to Emmaus in Luke Chapter 24:32, talking with Jesus and not knowing it was Him until He left, where they then looked at each other and said, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” — we are changed by knowing Him.
Gratitude stems from having a relationship so connected to Jesus that you cannot but help speak of his goodness working in your life, and that gratitude is contagious. It is so contagious that when you greet others, they are moved to know you more deeply. So let them.
Take a moment to reflect on how God has worked and is working in your life in the profoundly difficult and the abundantly beautiful. Let us challenge ourselves in every season to share these moments with others as we welcome them into our homes and into our hearts.
