For a long while now, I’ve been worried about a myriad of things: money, travel, am I doing anything worthwhile with my life? (As you can see, the questions have escalated the more I’ve thought about all the things about which to worry!)
But then there are these moments when that still small voice whispers this: I AM. And it is in these moments that I realize I cannot possibly control all these things.
There is just too much going on for my human mind to truly understand or assert control over, so I started writing poetry. Because I cannot control situations, but I can control expressions. How do you cope with lack of control? Most of our sin is sin that comes out of an inability to control or a desire to control something that we cannot. Think about – how many times have you lied or stolen or disregarded… Because you were trying to control the situation? Right?
Inside and outside
Of situations I wish I could
Leave behind
Cords of uncertainty
Strain themselves
Tightening around
My mind
And fear takes hold
And I hold
Onto it like there is
Nothing else
For me to count on
Or hope in
But something changes
When perspective engages
Fear and hope
Putting things
In much more reasonable light
To be reminded that gratitude
Is always an option
And it is not just a posture
To take on once a year
But a position to live from,
It’s where we conquer fear
And hatred
And misunderstanding
Where we stand above the lesser choice
Of pride
And anxiousness
And uncertainty.
There is nothing wrong
With recognizing the unknown
But the problems start
When we forget
There’s One
Who always knows,
His arms reach beyond
The frailty of our minds
To wrap us up in safety
Gratitude
And perfect Love
Casting out
Every thought
That has kept us bound,
Positioning our hearts
In gratitude
To hear this lovely sound:
You are loved
And you are strong
And my grace covers it all.
Be thankful this year
Step out of the fear
Knowing He’s sufficient
Knowing you’re not alone
Breathe, my dear
You can live in gratitude
Now
And every moment
This is grateful breakthrough
Life is funny, isn’t it? The way we deal with pain and fear, but I wonder how thankfulness and giving up this need for control could change all of that. There will always be a level of uncertainty we have to live with and giving up the attempts to try and make everything understandable. Because in these vain attempts to control, sometimes we eat a lot or not enough… we overwork or throw all “care” to the wind and lay around… we work out incessantly or stare at screens for hours on end—organizing our public images…
We do all of these things out of this deeper desire to control. But I think there would be much less stress if we (here’s the Thanksgiving-y beginning of this post) practiced GRATITUDE.
We are constantly, especially around this time of year, reminding one another and ourselves to be thankful for what we have, but I think it becomes an oddly normal thing to be reminded of it, but putting it in perspective isn’t really practiced.
When I put into perspective how much God has promised me in life, and just how incredibly blessed I am to have such a loving family and enough food and clean water, the incredibly small number in my broke-college-student checking account isn’t quite so anxiety inducing anymore. This much has been provided, and even in moments when I don’t have enough money or enough sleep or enough time, there is always a way out because my God is faithful and so are my family and friends.
The other day, my cousin and I were talking about how incredibly blessed we are to live in the United States—to have been born here. What a crazy way that our lives have been orchestrated.
Something else so incredibly wonderful to be thankful for is that we get to be advocates for justice for all of those people throughout the world that don’t have a voice—we get to stand up against human trafficking and we get to stand up for immigrants, refugees, abused children, those living in domestic violence situation, oppressed people… We get to be voices for them—that’s something to be so very thankful for!!
We get so caught up in all the daily stressors, in worrying about today, tomorrow, next week, and next year. Our minds begin to suffocate from fear, but there is something so beautiful about gratitude—it loosens the bindings of fear around our minds. Slowly, we begin to live lives permanently positioned to be so incredibly grateful, everyone around us begins to catch on and gain this innate desire to just be thankful. There is a lot of bad, but oh, there is so much good, my friends.
Be thankful this year, and just never stop being thankful.
•••
With Love,
Hannah
