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The day after Thanksgiving.  We are stuffed full of turkey with all the trimmings and pie.  I hope we are filled to the brim with thankfulness as well.  I know I can get so caught up in all the preparations and cooking that I leave little time to actually think about the blessings I am supposed to be celebrating on this holiday.

But today, when all we have to do is warm up some leftovers, I am contemplating what it means to be truly grateful.  This has been a very difficult Fall for a lot of us, so the thought of trying to be thankful can be somewhat hard.  What does it mean when the Bible says to give thanks in all circumstances?  (I Thessalonians 5:18)  When so many of us have lost so much recently, how can we do this?

There’s a little hint in verse 17, it simply says pray continually.  Pour out your heart to God, all the hurts, anger, sadness and disappointments.  As you are honest with God, (and yourself) you make space in your soul by giving your heavy burdens to God.  When you do this, you just might be surprised to find room in your heart for thankfulness.  As you see your loving Heavenly Father gently carrying you, thank Him for it!

Even on the very hardest days, we can usually find at least one thing to be grateful for.  For me sometimes it is something as small as noticing the beautiful Fall colors and saying a simple, “thank you.”  When we give thanks to God, He will give us victory in our lives.  “But thanks be to God!  He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  I Corinthians 15:57

 

“Give thanks to the Lord, call on His name.”  I Chronicles 16:8

Check out my post, ‘Best Day Ever’ for more on this topic.

 

 

Every now and then we all have pie.  My family think it should go more like, all the time we have every pie.  Our family loves pie and that might be the understatement of the year.  We even have rules about pie.  On Thanksgiving there are to be no fewer than one pie per person.  This includes babies that can’t even eat pie yet.

 

Thanksgiving morning we start the day off the right way with pumpkin pie for breakfast.  The main pie rule of the house though, is if there is pie sitting on the counter it is fair game, no “saving” pie for later.

 

 

I am not humble about my pie baking abilities either.  I make really good pie.  My secret weapon is my great-great-grandmother’s piecrust recipe.  There is no delicate blending of ingredients, you can use this stuff like play-doh and it still comes out amazingly light and flaky.

 

 

I know how the piecrust feels.  In the Bible we are compared to clay that the potter uses to make jars and such with, but I think this pie crust example works too.  God uses circumstances in our lives to squish us, mold us, and roll us into perfect shapes to hold all His delicious truths.  I don’t like the shaping part though, it can be uncomfortable and painful!  But when God fills me with His truth and grace it is all worth it.

The best part about pie is eating it of course, but pie always tastes better when we are sharing it with people we care about.  That is God’s goal in shaping and filling us with grace too, for us to share it with other people.  This Thanksgiving my prayer for you dear reader, is that you will allow God to form you into the shape He has designed for you to be, and that the grace He pours into you would overflow to those around you.

“Yet, O Lord, you are our Father.  We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.”  Isaiah 64:8

And now for my great-great-grandmother’s piecrust recipe:

Piecrust
4 cups all-purpose flour

1 3/4 cup vegetable shortening

1 Tbs. sugar

2 tsp. salt (I never add the salt, but you might like it with the salt better)

1 Tbs. vinegar

1 egg

1/2 cup water

 

With a fork, mix together flour, shortening, sugar and salt, (if using.)  In a separate bowl, beat the remaining ingredients.  Combine the two mixtures, stirring with fork, (or squishing with your hands!) until thoroughly combined.  Then mold into four balls.  Chill at least 15 minutes before rolling in desired shape.  Dough can be wrapped in plastic wrap and left in refrigerator up to three days or can be frozen until ready to use.

 

 

 

This was going to be it, this would finally be the week we got on schedule.  All school year it had felt like an uphill climb to stay on track, with one thing or another always happening to derail us.  But not this week.  Sunday evening I set out my clothes for the next day and set my alarm, ready for Monday.  Three hours later I was throwing up.

The stomach flu.  I guess there is never a good time for the flu to show up.  All the same, I was very frustrated, after all I have a schedule to keep!  Yes, you can go ahead and laugh at me now.  Some day I suppose I will cease to be surprised by these “interruptions” life brings, but for now they just serve to emphasize my control-freak nature.

 

So, instead of getting back on track with homeschooling, piano lessons and the million other things I do every week, I drank tea.  Lots and lots of tea.

 

But you know what?  The world kept spinning, even without me.  Amazingly my kids kept up on their schoolwork and classes.  My husband made sure the house didn’t fall down, and everyone even got fed.  And me?  Well, after a huge battle with myself I eventually let myself get enough rest to get better.

Every time God allows something like the flu in my life, I learn a little more about His grace for me.  I am not the one holding the world in my hands, I don’t even have to hold it all together.  In his book entitled, Prayer, Forty Days of Practice, my friend Justin McRoberts says, “May the urgency with which I approach my work never become anxiety.  The world is not mine to save.”  Profound truth.

I hope I can get to a place some day where I can truly let go and rest in God’s grace no matter what comes my way.  “Mommmmy!”  Well, I guess my rest, (and this blog) are over!

“Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”  Luke 12:25

 

 

Last week I was talking about getting filled so we can pour back out.  I had been thinking of myself more like a pitcher that gets filled with water, emptied and then filled back up.  Then I was reading one of my favorite devotional books, Oswald Chambers’, “My Utmost For His Highest,” and he had a slightly different take on the idea.  He was describing us more as having rivers flowing out of us coming from our belief in God.  Quoting John 7:38 he said, “He that believes in Me out of him shall flow rivers of living water.”

I love this picture, because it speaks of a continual filling and a continual pouring out.  The river also sounds refreshing, especially this time of year when the hot weather seems to drag on.  Another thing that Oswald Chambers points out is that we cannot spiritually measure the success of this kind of pouring out.  The river that flows from our belief or service may impact someone much farther down, that we never even learn about.  In fact he goes so far as to say, “hundreds of other lives will be continually  refreshed.”  What an exciting way to live!

Sometimes we can get bogged down in the day to day of our lives and think we are not making much of a difference to anyone, but if we are believing God and being faithful to the thing He has put in front of us to do, we could be impacting untold numbers of people.  That is so encouraging.

So the next time I am doing a mundane chore, for the millionth time, I am going to try to believe this truth and receive the sweet spiritual filling that God offers.

“On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” By this He meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were later to receive.” John 7:37-39

Do you ever get to the evening and feel like you just don’t have anything left to give?  After giving to my children all day, by the time dinner is over sometimes I feel as though I am wrung out to my last drop of energy.  I was feeling a little bad about this, after all I really love my family and want to give them my all.  Also, didn’t Jesus go to the cross and literally give us His everything, right to His last drop of blood?

 

 

Obviously I am not Jesus, but I was still feeling a little guilty about how “done” I feel by the end of the day.  Then I came across Mark 6:30-32 in the Bible.  In the passage, the apostles were coming to Jesus to give Him a report of all they had been doing, and the things they had been teaching.  In other words, it was the end of a long day.  The passage goes on to say that because so many people were coming and going that they didn’t even get to eat.  I know about that!  Sometimes I realize that my mood has more to do with a lack of food than with anything else.

What happens next in the account though, was what really caught my attention.  Jesus tells them to come with Him to a quiet place to rest, (and I would assume, eat.)  Now if even the apostles needed to take some time out, I guess that means a busy mother needs some rest as well.  After all, it is probably my pride getting in my way if I think I don’t need something that even Jesus and His disciples needed.

I have now found that if I take a five minute break here and there, to take a deep breath and regroup, I can come back in ready to give and love again.  Rest for each of us can look different, and I do take a longer time in the morning to mentally and spiritually prepare for my day.  I would encourage you to find what works for you, to find what fills you up in order to pour out to those you love.  Whatever it is Jesus is waiting, saying, “Come with me by yourself to a quiet place and get some rest.”

“The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught.  Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, ‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.’ So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place.”  Mark 6:30-32

 

I happened to see a deer through my window today. She looked so calm and peaceful. I knew, though, that if I were to open my door she would flee at once in a blind panic. I thought then of our faithful guardian dog, Sasha. She too looks peaceful and calm most of the time. However, when she is startled she leaps into action, ready to perform her duty as protector of our family.

When faced with possible danger the responses of these two animals are very different. Deer will run in what they hope is the opposite direction of the threat, while dogs focus in on the danger and run towards it. This made me think of us as people. I know there are lots of people that panic whenever something unexpected comes their way. When we panic, we can put ourselves and others into almost as much difficulty as the deer ends up in: tangled up in something, scraped up, or staring into some headlights. Maybe the unexpected event wasn’t really that bad, but if we react without stopping to think or pray, we can end up causing more harm.

I would rather be like a well-trained guardian dog. When the unexpected happens, I hope I can take a moment to pray and assess the situation through God’s eyes. Then I can act instead of reacting. As I act, God will give me courage and wisdom to face the issue head on. “In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” Romans 8:37

Whatever may come into your life today, I pray that God gives you peace and courage to move toward it in His strength.