I Want To Be Brave

One Thousand Gifts - a dare to live fully right where you are

"I know there is poor and hideous suffering....I only deepen the wound of the world when I neglect to give thanks for early light dappled through leaves and the heavy perfume of wild roses in early July and the song of crickets on humid nights....and all the good things that a good God gives.

Why would the world need more anger, more outrage? How does it save the world to reject unabashed joy when it is joy that saves us? Rejecting joy to stand in solidarity with the suffering doesn't rescue the suffering. The converse does.

The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful and all things true, even in the small, who give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and now, they are the change agents who bring fullest Light to all the world. When we lay the soil of our hard lives open to the rain of grace and let joy penetrate our cracked and dry places, let joy soak into our broken skin and deep crevices,

LIFE grows.

How can this not be the best thing for the world? For us? The clouds open when we mouth thanks."

I want to be brave.

I begun this book and only in the third chapter I am being challenged. What are my thoughts through out the day? Are those thoughts bringing joy into my life or are they robbing me of joy? In honesty.... its been the latter.

I want to be brave. I want to see good in ALL things. I want to be obedient to the creator and sustainer of this world and my life, but....I fear what He has for me, not a reverent fear, but a scared fear. Why is it so hard to focus on what he has preserved me from? Why am I having a hard time finding good in things that He has allowed in the past?

I need Him. I need my God. I need to know Him. I want to feel more of those moments of joy. Not just when a newborn baby is born, or when a couple gets married, or when someone graduates. I want to feel joy in the little things too. I want to, with my mouth, thank God for the feel of warm clothes when they come out of the dryer and for the opportunities given when driving my child to and from school and for smells of fresh bread or a pot of spaghetti sauce.

May I feel the joy that only God can give....that he wants me to receive.....daily!