The First Year of Gratitude

I'm thinking about gratitude today... and how much there is to be grateful for. There is so much good in the world, so much love, and I am so grateful that God created us with the ability to feel all of the beauty, compassion, gentleness, and love that is around us. Even when we don't feel the love, we know that God is love (1 John 4:8), and since God is always present, the love is always there.

For as long as I can remember, I have always felt grateful for the love in my life; the kindnesses, the acts of compassion, the times when I felt God's presence, the friends and family who somehow saved me, both figuratively and literally. But this year is different; I can't remember any other year in my life where I have felt so intensely grateful, gratitude that has bowled me over time and time again. There are so many instances every single day that cause this overwhelming feeling of gratitude to well up inside of me. And because I can't remember any year when I felt quite this grateful, I am calling this "The First Year of Gratitude." (Strangely enough, this has also been the toughest year, but I addressed that topic in an earlier blog.) It is the first year where I have felt it permeate every moment, every nook and cranny, of every day. And in the future, I hope that I can always remember to be grateful, whether I am having a rough time or an easy time or whatever may be going on.

One day this past July, I was walking along the ocean. I'd been having a hard time with things, and had been contemplating my life: there were a lot of circumstances that I didn't know what to do about. But I knew that life was good and was a gift from God, and I knew that it could be better than it was currently. I'd recently had a "rainbows and balloons" moment, which is what I call the feeling I get when I am overcome with an incredible feeling of joy, and the knowledge that life is pretty fantastic. It had been a while since I'd felt that feeling, and when it showed up again I was so grateful. At one point on that ocean walk, I just stopped and closed my eyes... I felt the wind on my face, I listened to the seagulls calling to each other, and I breathed in the salty air. I had such a sense of stillness and of peace. The verse "Peace, be still" (Mark 4:39) came to me then, and for a full minute I just stood there. I thought of everything in my life, all the gifts and the blessings, and I was so grateful.

When thinking about limitless gratitude, countless things to be grateful for, I sometimes view the start of a day as a blank piece of paper. If I think of any single day in my life starting out as that blank paper, waiting to be written on, I see that the good that is present in my life fills up the paper pretty quickly. I know that there are countless things that happen each day, each hour, I can be grateful for. Maybe it is Vinnie snuggling up next to me in the morning, gently reminding me that I've hit the snooze button 4 times already. Or rushing to work and discovering that someone has brought bagels to share. Or a mid-morning phone call from a friend, who simply says, "I was just thinking of you and wanted to check in." A loving email. A funny dog video on YouTube that a friend sends me. A nice conversation with a coworker. A joke that a client can't wait to tell me. Running for the bus and realizing that both the bus and I are exactly 3 minutes late, in perfect synchronicity. Receiving a check in the mail that is the exact amount that those new brakes are going to cost. A hymn at church that speaks directly to my heart and is exactly what I need to hear. I find that no matter what happens, no matter what is going on in my life, at the end of the day there are more things written on that paper that fall under the "grateful" side than the "this sucks" side. It is an amazing feeling when we realize how many gifts are actually present, little or big things, that can make such a difference.

And each of those things is a gift from God. One of my favorite verses talks about these gifts. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights" (James 1:17). Any good thing that happens in our day is like a personalized present from God, a time when God says, "I thought you could use this today," or, "Let me make this a little easier for you; I've got your back." I think about Him being there with us, talking with us, knowing that all is well and helping us maneuver through our lives as we also discover, although at a much slower pace, that all is well.

This is not to discount the rough days, or the times when things are really difficult or traumatizing. We all have those moments, those times in our lives where we don't know what to do. And on numerous occasions, I am not proud to admit, I have mentally compiled a list of things that were going wrong in my life. It made me feel vindicated, somehow justified, for how horrible I was feeling. When it seems the odds are stacked against you or that nothing is going right, life can seem pretty unfair and harsh. I can only speak from my experience, but I know that even during these horrible times we sometimes find ourselves in, God is always present. There has always been some comfort, some glimmer of hope, that has been there just when I needed it. In those tough moments over the past year, I am so grateful that I somehow found the ounce of strength (or desperation, not sure which) that it took to try and find one good thing. I have a friend who once told me, "Just find one good thought, and hang on to it." That was so helpful. Just one good idea, one moment with God... one phone call that I could make or email that I could write to a friend who could help me get some perspective or give me something to lean on until I found my footing again. And when that happened, what I found was that I was so grateful for anything that wasn't dark, that had some bit of hope or happiness, that it somehow turned the tables on how I was feeling. Once I had a good thought in my head, a little bit of inspiration and hope, it sort of grew until it took over every other thing that was unlike it. And that just shows me one more thing I'm grateful for: the power of good to overcome anything not good. Obviously, we may still need some time to work through things, some prayer or some extra help, but in those dark times a little light makes all the difference and can motivate us to even want to take those extra steps.

I am so grateful for each gift in my life, and for God and His presence. I am also so grateful for the ways He shows love to us: through nature, through our connections with other people, through animals, through His ideas. God, Love, is all around. I am grateful for this year, this First Year of Gratitude, and for the many more years in my life to come where I will have the opportunity to express and feel this love and gratitude. What a gift.

- Thanksgiving 2012

Time and Anniversaries

Time and memories and anniversaries are strange things, and too huge of topics to adequately address in a single blog post. However, I have some ideas and experiences I’d like to share.

I realized that exactly a year ago today I was wandering around London, looking for a church that I wasn’t sure I was going to find. I’d been to that church the previous year in 2010, but at that time a London-dwelling friend had walked me there, so obviously I had tuned out on the way over and had no idea where it was. J This time, I searched back and forth through several neighborhoods, up and down windy streets, with no international GPS on my phone to help me. I started to panic. It was important to me to go to this church, and what if I couldn’t find it? After at least an hour, maybe two, I finally stumbled across it, hidden away on a remote street.

I can’t adequately describe the sense of elation I felt right then; that church, although I’d only been once before, had felt like my church away from home. (For another post on church being “home,” click here.) The time I attended in 2010 was one of the most loving, spiritual moments of my life; I remember feeling that God was so close, embracing me, and I felt so peaceful and, well, so loved. So this time, in 2011, tears immediately came to my eyes as soon as I realized I’d found it again. I was relieved, and super excited to be able to attend again. And to top it all off, one of my dear friends attended that church, and I couldn’t wait to see her.  

(Speaking of anniversaries, something else happened that same night that I remember because it was so substantial. As I was walking home from the church, my foot started aching for no reason that I could figure out. I was alarmed to find that I couldn’t do much walking around for the next 5 days. I had a pretty amazing healing, which I’ll write about more extensively in another post.)

The concept of time and anniversaries is so present in our lives. We live in a society that is bound to a calendar. We have day planners, online schedules, time frames… Some of us even have an “internal clock” and can almost pinpoint the time, without checking our cell phone or watch. We are constantly being reminded what time it is, where we have to be in 5 minutes, what our next commitment is. It has become so ingrained into our nature and our way of doing things. I wonder if we rely on calendars too much; there are good sides and bad sides to being so aware of time, and I’ll talk about both below.

Sometimes this dependence, this obsession, with time can seem like a ball and chain. I had a boss who always said, “When I retire, I’m going to sit on the beach and never wear a watch again.” I loved that. The Bible says, “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day” (2 Peter 3:8). God does not have the same idea of time as we do. He is not limited in His view of time, and being eternal and infinite, He has no beginning and no end. It definitely gives us another perspective of existence, if we think about ourselves as God’s creation and as having no spiritual beginning or end. Likewise, Jesus seemed to have the same timelessness. ”Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). And I feel that we are like that, too. Obviously we change and progress and grow, but there was never a time where there wasn’t a “Katie.” Even before I was born, and long after I die, I was and will be an idea of God’s. No beginning and no end.

On the advantageous side, time is useful with work and planning events, and it definitely helps us be more efficient. If I could just roll into work at any hour of the day and leave whenever I felt I’d spent enough “time” there, I’d probably be there about 3 hours each day. This would obviously be a problem. Many of us adhere to the 40hour/week work schedule (or 50, or 60…) and while it may seem rigid at times, it helps us be productive and get things done. In that sense, having a concept of time is essential. Many industries rely on time and schedules as the main “product” they are selling, such as airlines, train stations, the US Postal Service, schools, farmers, etc. Here, time is integral to the quality of the service.

As with time, remembering anniversaries can also have a positive side as well as a negative side. I think that the anniversaries in our lives can give us opportunities to recall important events, whether they were happy or sad. If they were happy, they are a time for celebration and rejoicing. We can relive our wedding day or the days our children were born or the day we graduated college. However, if the event was sad or was a day of loss, these anniversaries can give us opportunities to remind ourselves of the love in our lives. I think about the day that my friend’s mom passed away a few years ago, and each year on that date we call each other and share a loving story, recall a funny memory, or just check in with each other to say, “I was thinking about you today and I love you.”

What I don’t want to do with anniversaries is to get wrapped up in regret or guilt. Sometimes I find myself thinking, longingly, “If only it were last year at this same time… I would have done things differently.” This is not helpful thinking, and makes me feel bad instead of looking forward. If an anniversary just makes me feel like beating myself up, then it is useless. But if I can embrace the good that is present, and exists yesterday and today and tomorrow, then it can be a time for healing and a time for love.

Today I’m focusing on the gratitude and the relief I felt when I stumbled across my “London church” last year. It will always be a special place for me, and I am grateful that something that happened a year ago, 2 years ago, 10 years ago, can still positively affect my experience today.

"All is well."

This summer I had the opportunity to watch many beautiful sunsets. One of my favorite things about sunsets is the amazing range of colors of the clouds. They look one particular way before the sun touches the horizon, another way while the sun seems to be dipping below the horizon, and then yet another way a few minutes after the sun has disappeared. In each of these stages, the colors of the clouds change, the intensity of the light varies, and it's like watching a completely different scene from one minute to the next. But we all know that it's the same scene; the same sun, the same clouds, the same location. Recently, I've been thinking about these 3 cloud pictures as an analogy for when someone passes away. The clouds don't change, but what changes is our perspective, our view, of the clouds. Their essence, their being, their identity as a creation of God, doesn't change. They may just look or seem a little different when we look at them with our human concepts of time or space.

 

Last week I found out that one of my dear friends had recently passed away. It was a total shock to me. I found that part of me, about 99% of me, didn't believe it was real. That night after I found out the news, I remember I woke up about a million times, each time thinking, "Did that really happen?" And each time, it hit me again: yes, it's still true. I was in freefall; I felt like someone had pushed me out of an airplane without checking to make sure I had a parachute.

And then, when I thought I was going to smash into the ground, things started to slow down a bit. I felt like I was surrounded by love, both the love that she feels for me, and the love that I feel for her. I experienced a couple of moments where I felt her presence so much; whether it was something someone said that she always used to say, or it was something that happened that I had connected to my friendship with her... And then I realized that there were many other things that I could point to, other instances from the past two months that she'd been gone, that made me think of her. I hadn't known she'd passed away right away, but when I looked back on that time period, it was easy to see several other instances where I felt that she was there. For one, I couldn't stop thinking about her this Fall, and I didn't know why she was on my mind so much. One of the most interesting things was that right around the time she passed away, I took a picture of the sun and clouds, and the sun came through in a heart shape.

 

In the past week, I've found myself going through old emails, texts, phone conversations... and discovered that the last thing this person said to me was, "Don't worry. All is well." At first, I became angry when I realized this was her last message to me. I wanted to say to her, "What do you mean, 'All is well'? It obviously wasn't." And then, in the midst of my anger, a friend gently pointed out, "I think that is exactly what she would like to say to you right now." As I thought about this, I started to wonder if she was right, that maybe all was well.

She, like all of us, is a spiritual being, made by God who is all spiritual. Just because I can't see her anymore doesn't mean she is not here or that she is somehow "gone." In some ways, she is more present than ever before. When we weren't able to communicate much or see each other, it was because of material restrictions. Time, physical distance, money, challenges, obligations... And now there are no restrictions on her presence or on my experiencing her right here, right with me.

The night before I found out she had passed, I was feeling agitated and nervous. I could not get to sleep. I was thinking about her because I had planned to call her the next morning, and as I was tossing and turning I remembered a phone conversation we'd had, about a year and a half before. At that time, I was also feeling agitated, and I called to talk with her. After a few seconds, she calmly said, "Let's take a deep breath. Let's breathe in, hold it, exhale... Okay, now let's do it again." She was thousands of miles away, but somehow, thanks to cell phones, she was helping me to breathe normally. I was grateful then, and was also incredibly grateful that that recollection came to me at that moment. Her love, the expression of God's love, was right there.

I thought I had lost her friendship in my life. I hadn't heard from her, we had lost our connection, and I was feeling pretty bad about it. Had I done something wrong? Did she not love me anymore? But in the past week I am realizing that she never left. It may have appeared that way, but again, that was just the material picture, constrained to the material ways of communicating. She was always there, whether I received an email or a call from her or not. She always said to me, "I don't want you ever thinking I'm ignoring you... if I don't answer, it's because I'm on the road, or I don't have service." And when we seemed to have lost our connection, I think that was a time when she didn't have "service," so to speak. It just wasn't possible to be in contact then, but she was always there. And after such a long separation, I finally feel like we are reconnecting... I am thinking about her, recalling all the funny, happy memories, and even talking with her sometimes. It's like she never left; she is right with me.

Over the summer, as I was watching one particular sunset, I had an interesting realization. After the sun disappeared behind the horizon, I had expected the sky to become darker, maybe more gloomy; after all, the sun was no longer visible. But somehow, the opposite effect occured; the clouds lit up, even intensified, and displayed the most amazing pink and orange color. It was beautiful.

 

 

"I am right here for you anytime," she once told me. And I know that's true. Even after her passing, she loves just as intensely as when she was here on Earth. It's like she is letting me know, adamantly, that she was not ignoring me, much like how adamant she was about things when she was here on Earth.

Now, it's so obvious to me that the love that existed in our friendship is there just as strong as ever. And each time I feel a bit of sadness or loss, I just remind myself that love is never lost, no person is ever lost, and all is well.