Practice Thanksgiving

What matters most to you?  What core values undergird your daily choices?  What gives meaning to your life?  Give thanks for those very important people, places, events, experiences, and ideals.  They counter the alarms that ring in your head and in our stressful world. 

Keep a gratitude journal.  Practice writing 3 things you observe or experience each day, that you are glad about.  Anything that causes you to pause and appreciate, smile, laugh over, or delight in like a beautiful sunset or an affirming conversation.

"Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."  Phil 4:8

Yes, we all experience stressors in our lives: the Covid-19 pandemic, disputed elections, holiday cautions, unemployment, illness, broken relationships...  Perhaps jotting nightly in a stress journal would prove helpful as a first step in managing stress?  What crisis, heartache, discord, need, or unsolved problem is weighing on you now?  Will you release it to God who loves you unconditionally?  He knows what to do.  He is mighty to save.  His timing is perfect. 

"Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you."  I Pet. 5:7

Hope Emerges from Struggle

Look up to see the maple's red leaves against the blue sky.  Look up to see the shining stars against the black velvet night.  

God spoke the world into existence.  He is bigger than any rocky problem you are facing today.  Keep reminding yourself of that truth. 

Admittedly life can get sad and scary.  When Humpty Dumpty falls from the wall,  life gets messy.  We wonder how and who will put it back together again.  

That's when we need to pull back, slow down, and simplify.  

Cleaning a closet is a process.  Pulling everything out to reorganize, produces piles of stuff everywhere, at first.  Carry on.  Do the next thing.  Wash the walls, patch and paint, choose thoughtfully what goes back in.  Select the stuff that needs to be donated or trashed.  Because as we all know, we can easily become bogged down with old stuff that no longer fits our present life.

Pursuing healing change in habits and relationships is harder still.  Sometimes we need help to make these monumental course corrections.  Ask.  Do the hard work.  Seek abundant life starting now, right where you are.  Jesus promises his presence, power, and peace, no matter how messy the process. 

"And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew. 28.20   

"For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38-39