Gratitude, again.

"If anyone would tell you the shortest, surest way to all happiness—
he must tell you to make it a rule to yourself to thank and praise God for everything that happens to you. For it is certain that whatever seeming calamity happens to you, if you thank and praise God for it, you turn it into a blessing.
Could you therefore work miracles, you could not do more for yourself than by this thankful spirit, for it heals with a word speaking, and turns all that it touches into happiness.… it be the noblest sacrifice that the greatest Saint can offer unto God."

 

Certainly, if I'm posting this on the internet, I should give credit to who said it. But I'm not quite sure, so I'm sorry.

 

I came across the above quote over my Thanksgiving break. I liked it. In the Christian life, well walk, there are those times of happy and times of sad, then there are the times when you just are somewhere in the middle. I'm writing this blog, to remind myself to be happy in that middle. I'm sitting in a beautiful house nestled in the upper Appalachan mountains, getting ready for church, spending the week with one of my best friends who is home on furlough from the bush of Tanzania, finishing up my coffee, listening to Lacrae, and feeling content. After about 2 years of first mentally, then physically, feeling unwell, I relish the quietness I find in my heart. The attitude of gratitude does make a difference. I am glad to be able to now be in a healthy place to look back and find some of the lessons from the valleys. Those time of being strengthened, they are important to the Christian walk. They certainly aren't welcome, but they sure do serve as a reminder to who our Savior is, and who we are NOT. I'm humbly desiring that strengthening. I spend my workdays hearing and attempting to fix sadness and hurt, I see it on the news, I hear about it. I want to be used to make a difference. And I certainly do need help.

 

^{Colossians 1: 9} For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives,^{[e] 10} so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, ¹¹ being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, ¹² and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you^[f] to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. ¹³ For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, ¹⁴ in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.