Being grateful

So many times, my mind drifts into thoughts about my place in the world - my tiny, seemingly insignificant life subject to the whims and capriciousness of the events around me.  I call them my "Oh, cruel world!" moments.  And yeah, the world is cruel. But it's kinder to me than I can imagine. I have never gone hungry because food wasn't available.  I get to go home and sleep in warmth and comfort.  And no more than two streets away, I know that somebody isn't as fortunate.  It's not even about feeling sorry for someone "less fortunate" than you; it's about ungratefulness.

Gratitude fuels the fire to my desire to contribute to change, to find my purpose in the world, to find my name in the book of life.  Without gratitude, I wallow in my misery and I am rendered ineffective.  It's a tool of the Enemy and it's his most successful tool.  How many times have I been paralyzed by my inability to see beyond the scope of my problems?  Paralysis isn't the place for a child of God.  All I can do is thank God that I will have the opportunity to increase in strength and tell Satan to get behind me, because he ain't getting none of this.

 ¹Therefore, since we have been justified by faith,we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. ²Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. ³More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Romans 5: 1 - 5 (ESV)


I find myself coming back to this scripture over and over again.  In this life, it seems that I really have to learn to appreciate suffering, rather than evade it at all costs.  A life of pleasure-seeking and frivolity yields little reward.  With gratitude and suffering, I have to learn how to have the former when I'm going through the latter. God give me grace, because that is so f$%@$ing hard.  But I gotta learn or what will the rest of my life look like? (I can answer that question. . . not. good.)


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