Thanksgiving
Well. I have grand plans for Thanksgiving, but I've yet to execute them. In the mean time, I LOVE the fall. I love the chill in the air, the colors and crunch of the leaves, and all delicious fall foods beginning with the letter "p" (like pomegranates! persimmons! pears! pumpkins! pie!)
What I want to do is create an advent for the entire month challenging our family to think of different memories and experiences we are grateful for. Perhaps some usuals, like our bodies, nature, God and His revelations or dealings with us personally. But I'd also like to include the things that are harder to turn toward in gratitude, but important to our exaltation. Like sins we've repented of, suffering that changed us, or the way hard times make room for greater joy.
Perhaps someday. If you get to it first, share it with me!
In the mean time, here are some expressions of gratitude (#GiveThanks):
God, Diversity, People, and Jesus
This World
Life
My Body
My Husband
My Children
Trials
Forgiveness
Jesus Christ
President Nelson
GOD, DIVERSITY, PEOPLE, AND JESUS
Did you know that I am extreme? I love opposites. Like hot apple crisp with ice cream. Or the sweet and sour intensity of deep red pomegranates. Or snuggling in a sleeping bag with frigid air brushing over my face. I also love pushing my limits, like rock climbing until my muscles give out, peak bagging, or sprinting uphill. A loving God designed my life for me -- the highest highs, the lowest lows, and a lot of challenges to overcome. He knew I would be satisfied with nothing less!
- I AM GRATEFUL FOR A GOD WHO LOVES ME.
Once I toured the Smithsonian on a rush tour and I was emotionally overcome by the phenomenal diversity! Rocks! Galaxies! Native American cultures! As I've studied the sciences I've seen even more -- molecules, lightwaves, cells, animals, ecosystems. This world is infinite diversity, on every scale, in every category. It's just so exhilarating! I will never be able to discover it all, even though I spend my life trying. It's a playground for the children of God.
- I AM GRATEFUL FOR DIVERSITY.
My favorite part of being a wife, mother, and daughter is knowing another human being well enough so that I can minister to her soul with tender precision. I can teach with metaphors that speak to her heart. I can love the way Christ loves (which is not "I love you how you are"... it's more like, "I love the best that is in you, and I will help you see it")
- I AM GRATEFUL FOR PEOPLE, AND OPPORTUNITIES TO LOVE THEM
- I AM GRATEFUL FOR JESUS CHRIST.
I'M GRATEFUL FOR THIS WORLD
I'm grateful for...
- jumping into a cold lake on a hot summer day
- standing on top of a mountain taking in the vastness of the landscape in every breath
- the charged, boisterous, tumbling air right before a storm. It's warm, with hints of cold, It tumbles in every direction, as if it's confused about the changes coming. It plays with my hair and continually surprises me. I feel alive in a storm.
- pixies on the water. That's what I call those sparkles of light that reflect off the irregularities in the surface of a body of water.
- the ornate details of creation at every scale. A praying mantis is an exquisite work of art, and seeing the landscape from an airplane is a fascinating mural. And then the deep space Hubble photographs! Stars are actually galaxies! And each galaxy is unique. It takes my breath away.
- dew on wild grass stalks in the morning. It's like they are all decked out in jewels and royal glory! Adorned for the creeping crawling things to appreciate.
- desert monsoons. I like to run outside with my kids, stomp in the puddles, and get completely drenched. The water coming down is heavy and cold. The streams flowing over the ground are warm, even steamy sometimes because they are cooling off the hot earth. And everything is transformed! The landscape that is the same day after day suddenly looks more like a Dr. Seuss illustration than the desert I know.
I'm learning to love every creature and the other day I gently moved a black widow instead of killing her. Immediately she curled up in the tightest ball. She looked very dead. She desperately wanted to protect herself from me.
I'M GRATEFUL FOR LIFE.
Once I complained to God about the injustice of life on this earth. I was standing over a field of yucca, and I felt particularly unhappy about the yucca growing in the shade, without water channels nearby. They were stunted. Their flower stalks short and scruffy. It wasn't their fault they didn't look grand and magnificent, I said. Why don't they get to grow in full sun with adequate water?
(and can you hear my unspoken cry? I was really asking my Father, "why don't I get to look beautiful like the people I see around me?")
And then God turned everything upside down for me. Actually, He turned it right side up. I saw atoms flowing all across the planet. One particular atom might start inside a rock, then erode and dissolve into water, then get soaked up into a plant or a tree. The tree might be cut down, the wood sawed into a plank, and the plank nailed into the frame of my house. And there it stands, until it doesn't, and it flows onward in a new journey.
On and on through the ages. A dance of atoms across the planet! Flowing into a million shapes, forms, and expressions of life.
The dance was incredible to witness. And then I understood the longing each new spirit has to be part of it. Not to be the grandest yucca on top of the hill, but just to participate! Just to innervate some part of it, to feel it, affect it and try it out.
Words don't convey it well. But after that I stopped caring about having a nice flower stalk, and began feeling grateful to breathe. To feel. To see. To hear. To smell and taste. To talk, share, love, cry, grieve, rejoice... It's an experience. A bit like hiking Angel's Landing at Zion National Park. I pay for it, get up at 4 am to get to the trailhead, and then kick my own butt hiking up the mountain. And it's awesome! I would do it again. Just to see the views, and feel the sweat on my skin.
I'M GRATEFUL FOR MY BODY.
I love to move and feel and experience! My body lets me do all of these things. I'm especially grateful for
- kayaking, swimming
- dancing, rock climbing
- hiking, backpacking
- bicycling, running (particularly pretending I am a gazelle and sprinting uphill)
- traveling, and using all my senses to absorb the place I'm in
- jumping into cold water
- smiling, laughing
- feeling chills
- being warm and snuggly
- physical self expression, like animated gestures while I talk, with my hands, arms, face and even my whole body
- a voice and words to speak
- hugging and kissing my children
- seeing and feeling
I'M GRATEFUL FOR MY HUSBAND.
For example.From the time we were first engaged, he began talking about how excited he was for me to get gray hairs. Now this took me a little aback. I mean, we were older when we met, sure, but not even past 30! It took awhile before I asked him what he meant by it.
He explained that gray hair means we've grown old together. It's a measure of our adventures, and our commitment to each other.
Thanks to his repeated reframing of my aging beauty, when I found that first gray hair (and those first wrinkles), I felt surprised, yes, but also a tiny bit excited. I ran to show him and we celebrated. I've accumulated more of those hairs since then -- I even have a white eyebrow! -- and every time I see them I feel love, joy, and gratitude, instead of dread and avoidance.
Marriage is hard, by design. And his heart is good for mine.
I'M GRATEFUL FOR MY CHILDREN.
When I first got married I didn't think I'd be able to have children. And before that I was terrified of children for fear that I would inadvertently pass my own abuse onto them. Through the grace of God I was able to overcome both hurdles and have four. Two ended in miscarriages. Two are alive today. I wish I could have more. When I ask God says "No." Clearly.
But the two I enjoy in this life... wow! Having and raising them is the greatest and the hardest. They are so uniquely themselves, with their own interests and creative outlets. They are keen to follow the spirit, even though they don't have words to express it. They are quick to serve and love and yell and cry. They are 100%, all in or all out, in everything they do. They keep me honest, not understanding or allowing for even the smallest degree of hypocrisy.
They learn and imitate me, and so I get to see my best and worst qualities enlarged in them, as if under a magnifying glass.
And I know from my own mother's death how they love me. They love me because I'm their mother. It's that simple. No one can replace me in their hearts, and nothing I do changes their love and connection to me. I gave them life, and that is enough to fuel a lifetime of love.
I'M GRATEFUL FOR MY TRIALS.
I am grateful for my trials. I know that can sound insincere, so I made a video to explain.
I'M GRATEFUL FOR FORGIVENESS.
Before I got married I vowed that I would not have children unless I knew I could prevent passing the abuse that I suffered onto them. After lots of therapy and growth, I believed I could succeed and got pregnant with my first child.
That pregnancy was more difficult than I'd ever anticipated, and at the end of it my body didn't progress into labor. I was induced and my baby boy was admitted into the NICU.
After 24 hours they said he was healthy, but he had to meet nursing requirements in order to be discharged. We spent a week trying to meet those requirements. The first couple days didn't qualify because my milk hadn't come in, and the requirements did not account for colostrum. After that he consistently ate just below the required amount.
Which left me with a horrific choice. I could either force him to eat more and, if successful, take my baby home. Or I could let him stop. When I let him stop hospital staff fed him more through a tube, even if he threw it up, and we started over trying to pass the exit requirements. Because some of my abuse was being forced to eat to the point of throwing up, this was truly my worst nightmare. The most psychologically damaging thing I could face. My mind almost didn't survive it.
And yet. My son and I recovered. We made it out of the hospital, and the next week I lay next to him like a mama whale safe in a deserted lagoon, gazing at my loving and forgiving child gazing up at me. I've since made so many mistakes with him, hurting him in ways I never intended. Each time he's forgiven me. Each time I teach and mentor him in healing from the pain that happens in this world, even the pain I caused myself. My own mistakes lay the groundwork for some of his most important lessons in this life!
And it's all possible because of repentance, forgiveness, healing, and change. Forgiveness is a wonder and a miracle! Intentional, verbal forgiveness breaks unholy bonds. Between and inside people. It's powerful. It's freedom. It's love.
I'M GRATEFUL FOR JESUS CHRIST.
He has healed me in so many ways. Healed my thinking, self perception, physical body, desires, relationships, and hurts. He has given me forgiveness instead of woundedness, love instead of fear, faith instead of doubt, wisdom instead of ignorance, charity instead of selfishness, humility instead of pride. He knows when to be tender, forceful, loving, or instructive with me. He is kind, fierce, clear, playful, gentle, and 100% trustworthy.
Here's a story of His goodness:
Last year, I woke up on the 4th of July with laryngitis and pink eye. My family got laryngitis too. They recovered within a week. I began recovering (instead of getting worse) two weeks later. I ate 3 small meals that month, and each time I ate I relapsed, -- my fever, aches, sore throat and coughing returned just as bad as in the original illness!
You can bet I prayed about what to do and to get better. I didn't hear clear answers from God about it, and my voice didn't fully recover. Even when my voice mostly sounded ok (4-5 months after the original illness), it took great effort to produce normal-sounding tone, and I couldn't sing.
But in March 2020 God healed both my physical voice and something so much bigger. He healed my self expression, my ability to speak His words and my words. It's always been hard to say the words I want to say, as in difficult to get them from my mind to my mouth or even my mind to my hands. Now those words come easily!
I LOVE this God of mine. I love His healing, and I love how He makes me better than I am. I finally like who I am. And it is not thanks to me. Jesus has changed both the way I see myself and the behaviors I am able to choose. It's just magnificent. Miraculous really. Praise Him!
I'M GRATEFUL FOR PRESIDENT NELSON.
I love this man! And I am SO SO grateful for his leadership, both in the world and in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is wise, grounded, compassionate, and thoughtful.
Watch his video! It is directed toward the world, not specific to one church. I think all can find it inspiring.
On a personal note, Earlier this year (2020) I used gratitude and praising God to get me through tremendous physical pain, the worst I've ever experienced. It worked as well as anesthesia!!! Even if you can't access that degree of relief, you will find some relief for whatever ails you by practicing gratitude as Pres. Nelson recommends.
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