**this post is inspired by this book and part of my continuation of hunting for more gratitude in my everyday life. I've started a series on Instagram & Flickr called #1000thanks where I am documenting the things I am thankful for, via images, throughout the day! Join me there or on Facebook or on Twitter if you'd like!**
These days have been battlefield days... the kind where every moment feels like imminent victory or imminent defeat, with no middle ground in between. One moment I am soaring high with thanksgiving on my lips, gratitude singing in my heart, joy lighting my face... the next I am hiding in the bedroom- breathing hard and reeling.
There is such a tension in my heart... like a violin string... held somewhere between singing and snapping sharp, coiling back.
I feel like this is all stemming from my dogged determination to dig up gratitude in the hard soil of my heart. It is... extremely hard work. Harder than I ever imagined it would be. But if you think about it, it is sort of akin to throwing a speeding car in reverse on the highway, isn't it? I have been driving so long and so hard and so far in discontentment! I have been wandering the road for 29 years, grumbling all the live long day! To throw my life suddenly into the direction of gratitude has not been easy. The tires are screaming and leaving melted layers on the asphalt. The smoke billows and every heavy ounce of kinetic energy is fighting the shift.
I am pressing against the momentum of an entire lifetime.
I'm in the screeching season.
I remind myself that it is just that... a season. It WILL become more natural, over time. As I do the hard work and hard practice of finding thankfulness in every day, every hour, it will become more like second nature. The momentum WILL eventually shift. Oh, I long for that to be the direction of my life!
But for now, it's the screeching season.
I will keep fighting. I will keep breathing. I will keep framing up these snapshots of gratitude... little memorials of God's goodness to me, to my family... preserved in time so that I can look.
7 comments:
Isn't all change hard?
I read in a book yesterday about 'only loving.' So, I will only love my husband, because I do only have feelings of love for him, not annoyance, disdain, etc. So, I can CHOOSE to ALWAYS ONLY SHOW LOVE. Which, lets be honest, is not easy to do. How this is playing out for me (I just read it yesterday), this morning when my husband wasn't getting out of bed for work (I normally would yell, nag, etc.) was to make him chocolate milk to wake up to, and be quiet, trust that he'll wake up on his own.
Here we go, trying new things!!!
I'm not sure my last comment went through... (silly iPhone). Anyway- I just wanted to thank you for your blog... I always leave feeling refreshed & encouraged. Your blog is my absolute favorite to read. Thank you for painting motherhood in a honest light. You are an incredible mother...
Beautiful writing, as always, Emery...
Ah, the myth of the will… I was always told 'Where there's a will, there's a way' which is certainly true but doesn't emphasize enough the in between process. I have to learn and relearn and relearn that where there's a will, there's a way but it takes a lot of perseverance.
for me, when i want to change, i have to pray pray pray and beg the holy spirit to give me new desires that replace the old ones(ie thankful heart rather than a grumbling heart). "our problems is not that we need to develop more willpower...we don't need to learn how to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps or 'gut it out'. We need to seek have new passions....and when God grants these new holy passions to us, we'll find that our will, which seemed so weak before, will joyfully comply" Elyse Fitzpatrick, Idols of the Heart.
I am rooting for you Emery. It's a battle! Til the day we die. Keep fighting with everything you've got, because that will bring HIM glory! I know that in HIS power, you will win and then you can give him all the praise!
K Em, I joined you
http://www.misguidedmommy.com/blog/549/#1000thanks
Thank you!
i love annajoy. she introduced me to your blog :)
Emery, these words are beautiful.
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