Rest - Relax - Release - Rejoice

Rest in the deep assurance of My unfailing Love. Let your body, mind, and spirit Relax in My Presence. Release into My care anything that is troubling you, so that you can focus your full attention on Me. Be awed by the vast dimensions of My Love for you: wider, longer, higher, and deeper than anything you know.  Rejoice that this marvelous Love is yours forever...Bring Me the sacrifice of gratitude, and watch to see how much I bless you. ~ Sarah Young, Jesus Calling

Last week my phone lines went in and out, mostly out, leaving me without Internet access.  When the Internet issues began, I felt stressed knowing I could not leave posts during the week of Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving!

Of all weeks to not journal about gratitude!

All kind of questions and doubts about what others would think if I did not post began to fill my heart until I finally realized the path I was going down was not going to change the fact I did not have Internet and that I had a choice whether to stay on that dark path or step aside and choose another.

Pausing, then choosing another path...felt great! It felt powerful to intentionally choose a healthier path...

But then life decided to send another curve ball my way when I learned a much loved daughter decided she and her family would not be gathering with us for Thanksgiving.

I cried and I focused on what I would not have until my friend reminded me I had a choice.

I could choose to stay focused on what I would not have OR I could change my focus to what I would have.  

"Let your body, mind, and spirit relax in My Presence. Release into My care anything that is troubling you...and watch to see how much I bless you."

1 Peter 5:7 says: "Cast all your anxieties on him because he cares for you." (NIV)

Blessings don't always come as I expect.


I think blessings may some times come as quiet peace.  And, when I am open to that blessing, I am able to receive more blessings.  This past week, I did not have one daughter at the Thanksgiving table, but I had three others/spouses/Grands, both my parents, my brother/sister-in-law, a nephew/wife/baby, and my cousin...and there was much laughter, conversation, listening...and a feeling of love, respect, and gratitude for the relationships that rested between us, among us, and within us.

When I was able to Rest and Relax, my clenched hands Released and I knew Joy (Rejoice).

Still, I spent moments walking back and forth through the dark valley of hurt, doubt, and what-ifs off and on through out the weekend. Ann refers to these dark paths as "hard eucharisteo" and in chapter 5 of her book, she offers her own dark moments.

"I'm still transfixed when the ricochet of words rip up the back. 'Levi's hand went through a fan at the barn!'...I know it, even in running down the lane to the barn, this may be it. The hard eucharisteo. Now I know that I don't want to know it yet...Ever. How to lay the hand open for this moment's bread - when it will hurt." (Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts, p 80)

Yesterday morning, during the Job study, I was struck with Job's thought that he was no longer blessed because he was no longer experiencing the "good life." Life was not going "his" way.  One woman commented that Job had lost hope and was in despair.  Another commented that Job had lost his sense of being in "control", that suffering is being thrust into a situation that one has no control.

When life is good, it is easy to notice God's Gifts...God's Grace, yet all to often I am like Job, when life takes a u-turn and the unexpected happens and my illusion of control is burst in a split second...I silently wonder what of God's Grace then?

Job asks that hard question that I am sometimes afraid to voice aloud.

I realized this past week one reason I had hesitated in beginning my own journal of gratitude was I felt like Pollyanna listing "silly" things as grace...as gifts.

I don't want to be a "Pollyanna", still, I believe that my feeble attempts at writing gratitudes the past couple of weeks did make it easier to refocus (again and again) when I felt kicked in the gut regarding who would and would not be gathering around the Thanksgiving table and why.

68. Dad carving the turkey. 

69. Warm scents and taste of freshly roasted turkey. 

70. The moon shining brightly.

Yesterday morning I was greeted by many weary faces at church.  I didn't have the time to ask how Thanksgiving had gone for them but in some ways, their faces reflected a more than deep weariness.

Later I wondered if, like me, some had known disappointment during their time of giving thanks.  As I wondered this I focused back to myself.  I wondered how many of my disappointments come from the Universe not giving to me as I think/believe I should be given (like Job).  I wondered how many of my disappointments come from what I have already created in my imagination as "happening".... not happening. (eg: that Norman Rockwell image of family...of "perfection")  I wondered how many of my disappointments come from my perception that something is wrong with "me" when that image of perception does not happen and I go down that dark path of retributive judgement. (Job : ) )

I want to be saintly, yet I'm just San, doing my best every day to be aware, to continue reading and reflecting, to strive to notice and name God's Gifts even within those dark moments of hurt and uncertainty.

156. A gummy smile. 

157. Daughter #2 back home safe. 

158. Sharing a bowl of blackberries with #3. 

159. Internet! 

Ephesians 3:16-19, Paul says: "I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you [Sandi] with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your heart through faith.  I pray that you [Sandi], being being rooted and established in love, may have power...to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know this love surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of the fullness of God."

If I could just fully grasp these sacred truths!

Bring me the sacrifice of gratitude and watch to see how much I bless you.

The "sacrifice" of gratitude.

Now, there is another word for me to sit and ponder!
Many Blessings ~ Sandi

Can I accept God's Grace?

Grace, it means 'favor,' from the Latin gratia. It connotes a free readiness. A free and ready favor. That's grace. It is one thing to choose to take the grace offered at the cross. ~ Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts, p 18

I was thinking - wondering - this morning....I wondered if I struggle with gratitude because I am not sure of God's grace...for "me."

I wondered if I am more comfortable wallowing in a place of hurt and fear than I am of rising up and living as one filled with God's grace?

Yesterday I prepared the lesson for tomorrow's Lunch Bunch Bible Crash Course.  I'm beginning at the beginning...Genesis.  I wrote that all the wonders of God's creation and his creation of human kind, that within his creating of "me" he gave me free will.  Thus, it is MY choice to live with losses, and to still say "yes" to God.  It is my choice to say, "Yes" to what he freely gives.

Ummmm, does it frighten me to say "Yes" to such grace, to such love?

LOL...I just recalled Ann's image of a baby being born with tightly clenched hands....

On page 18, Ann shares thoughts of her brother-in-law, that being a farm girl myself resonate with my soul:

"Farmers, we think we control so much, do so much right to make a crop. And when you are farming you are faced with it every day. You control so little. Really. It's God who decides it all. Not us...It's all good." (AnnVoskamp, One Thousand Gifts, p 18)

Sunday, my congregation celebrated 180 years of ministry.  In some ways we threw a party, but only a few came....  I swallowed hard lumps of disappointment most of the day.  And, as I swallowed that disappointment RATHER than celebrating those who were there...
1. My physical pain became nearly excruciating by evening.
2. My sadness turned into a "Was it me???"
3. My disappointment turned into fear...What have I done wrong?

Yes, I know what is beneath all this "stuff" is my EGO.

Instead of depending on God, I'm taking responsibility and making decisions for what others.

Instead of celebrating the gift of faithful people, I focused on scarcity.

I chose to head down a dark path when God was beside, beneath, within, among...and I missed his glory reflected in all that was around me.

Ann shares her brother-in-law's story of burying two babies in an eighteen month period.  Recalling the conversation, Ann recalls her own response to the tragedy:

"If it were up to me...I'd write this story differently." (Ibid)

If I had written Sunday's story, we would have had to move the chairs from the Parlor in order to have seating available for an overflow crowd. I had written Sunday's story, people would have been standing in the kitchen with full plates because the tables were full. If I had...

Ann's brother-in-law held her words and then responded, saying:

"I don't know why this has happened, but do I have to?....Just that maybe...maybe you don't want to change the story, because you don't know what a different ending holds." (Voskamp, p 21) 

Okay...how often have I said there is a reason I am not writing the story of this world and of her creation! I don't know how it all works out, I cannot see where it all leads and what it all means. 

Then Ann reminds me of the Exodus story, telling once again how the Israelites ate manna for forty long years.  Manna, which means 'What is it?'

Hungry, they chose to gather up that which was baffling. They filled on that which had no meaning. More than 14,600 days they took their daily nourishment from that which they did not understand. They found soul-filling in the inexplicable. 

"They eat the mystery.

Ann writes of buried babies and broken, weeping fathers over graves, and a world pocked with pain, and all the mysteries she has refused to let nourish her.  She asks:

"If it were my daughter, my son? Would I really choose the manna? (Voskamp, p 22)

The losses, disappointments, the fears, the sadnesses...  I "know" in my head these are opportunities for me to see God.  You know, those holes that occur within my life... Now, if I can continue striving to express and learn to live gratitude during times when life is easier....I might be better equipped to trust God and express gratitude when the holes in life appear.

As Joyce Rupp encouraged me to understand in The Cup of Life, I will live a fuller life when I allow God to empty me without my digging in my heals. Ha! An ongoing work!!

Ann concludes Chapter 1, writing:

To fully live - to live full of grace and joy and all that is beauty eternal. It is possible, wildly.I now see and testify.So this story - my story.A dare to an emptier, fuller life. (Voskamp, p 23)

As I approach one of the busiest times of the church year and family life, I so suspect I need this dare!  While I may know these truths in my head, through the power of the Holy Spirit, may I live my talk!


Just A Prayer Away....


Many Blessings ~ Sandi