The good, the bad and the ugly...

I don't know exactly when it happened. But, somehow, somewhere along the road in my fatigue, or in my aging, I stopped giving thanks for the battle.  It's easy to give thanks for a thousand amazing, wonderful, beautiful gifts or for a million of them for that matter but, the handful of the really ugly ones... how do we give thanks for those?  You know, the ones we wish we could exchange, the ones that cause us and our children pain, the ones that don't come in pretty packages the way we expect them.

This, I am learning, is what lies at the root of my quest. I have been wondering why things are so different for me now than when the big kids were little.  Why it seems that things were so much simpler and more peaceful for me back in the beginning.  I have been struggling to find the answer to this for quite a while now and He just sent it to me in the form of this book.  A very simple but, powerful lesson...  The miracles are always preceded by a giving of thanks.  wow.  Could it really be that simple?  Ann Voskamp has taught me this incredible lesson in Eucharisteo.   Maybe I knew this...  maybe I have read it and heard it before, but, somehow, now it has become illuminated...a new revelation.

Now, I think I actually, finally, "get it"!  The difference between then and now is that when the big kids were little, I was always so thankful for EVERYTHING, even the bad stuff. Even the trials (I was actually happy to be in them. Imagine that! :).  I was happy because every time we were tested, I saw Him answer our prayers all the time and always so swiftly.  But, now because the answers aren't coming so quickly and the relief seems to never come...sometimes the days seem longer and harder and the exhaustion and fatigue of the battle and the reality of knowing that sometimes He doesn't heal or answer the way we expect is causing my thanks for the "bad" gifts to be delayed or not even given at all.

I needed this refresher course.  I needed to be reminded that He really does use ALL things for good...even the ugly things.  Especially the ugly ones.  The ones that painfully stretch & grow us.  Now, if I could just learn HOW to give thanks when I see my children suffering, THAT would certainly have to be a gift. The gift of an acquired skill, perhaps.  Because I definitely cannot do this one on my own.