Thankfulness

There are many things that I am thankful for – too many to count.  I am thankful every minute of every day, and yet, I am certainly guilty of not being thankful, too. I know that doesn’t make any sense.  But it’s true. I am always thankful for my husband, my children, my home, my van – and yet, sometimes I forget that I am thankful.  I don’t stop and think about it, because I am either plowing through life just trying to get to what’s next, or I am drowning in the mess of having young children instead of celebrating the beauty of it.

Thankfulness is a state of being but it is also a choice.  And it is my goal, starting now, to be thankful in all things.  For awhile last year I was practicing this pretty well.  We were having all kinds of trouble with our health insurance company denying stuff they should have been paying (I almost wrote our stupid insurance company; then I remembered that I am thankful that I have health insurance.)  Anyhoo, everytime I got an estimation of benefits that said what we OWED (read: what they wouldn’t pay that per our policy, they should have paid) or every time I got a bill from one of the  various and sundry medical providers that we (read: our insurance company) owed, I would have a mini-breakdown.

Until I read one day in I Thessalonians 5:18, “give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

And so I started thanking God for those stupid bills and statements coming in the mail.  It wasn’t that I was happy about getting them, but I somehow managed to muster up thanks.  Thanks that I had this “first world problem” and a God I trusted to provide for my family’s needs.  Sometimes I had to drag myself kicking and screaming to the threshold of thankfulness, but mostly I managed to get there.

Eventually, our insurance company did the right thing and paid all that crap. Six months later, I might add. But they paid, and I am thankful.

Now, though, that all that stuff has passed, I realized today that I have forgotten to be thankful in all circumstances. Or to be thankful for a blissful LACK of “circumstances”.  I’ve started to let the big stuff as well as the small stuff get to me again, in big ways.

So tomorrow, it’s Thanksgiving Day, and I’ve been reminded again that I need to truly be thankful in all things.  And to be intentional about it. So, here I go again, being thankful for the beautiful and the fugly. I imagine there will be plenty of times when I’ll have to drag myself kicking and screaming again, but I will do my best, and though I will surely fail at times, I am going to try hard to keep it up.  Which reminds me of something else I’m thankful for: second, third, and fourth chances!

Happy Thanksgiving, friends! I’m thankful that you read these words of mine today.