Gratitude
It’s been on my mind, and on my heart.
I chose it as one of my words for reflection in 2013. Along
with Simplicity and Presence, these are my attributes for attention and focus
this year.
Without knowing this, my dearest and oldest friend gave me
the book One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp for Christmas. Isn’t it great to have a friend who often
knows what you are thinking, from miles away, without you saying it?
Ann writes about her journey in discovering more fully joy, and life, and the love God extends to us as she struggles to open her eyes and heart to embrace gratitude in her everyday, mundane, and often messy, painful life. She’s a mom. She’s real. Her words are raw, are deep. This is one of those books I can’t quite take in on first read. Also – full disclosure, it’s not a warm and fuzzy, self-help book. It’s about the struggle of life and surrendering to grace, and allowing Jesus to spill out between the cracks and holes of our lives. She weaves throughout her story tidbits of the 1000 things she records to be grateful for. I’m about halfway through, truly, so I cannot tell you if she exceeds this or starts over, but I'll keep you posted.
But it reminded me of a little notebook I had started once,
in about 2001, someone had suggested this very thing. So I started writing in it. Not daily, no, definitely sporadically.
I pull it out and from numbers 1-599 I see highlights of my
first few years as a working professional, as a single woman, as a youth
mentor, then…meeting my husband, falling in love. And I see that it stops at #613….which seems
sort of pathetic given that it spans about 5 years. And it’s just about 13 items after #599 Elaina
Grace Maners, who is my now 2-1/2 year old daughter.
Ann writes early in the book about her first insight into
this act of giving thanks. She
encounters in her Scripture study the Greek word “eucharisteo” which means “he gave thanks” from Luke 22:19 “And he
took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them….” And then….this is the part that grabbed me, I
think you’ll see why:
“The root word of eucharisteo is charis, meaning ‘grace’. Jesus took the bread and saw it as grace and
gave thanks. He took the bread and knew it
to be gift and gave thanks….Eucharisteo,
thanksgiving envelopes the Greek word for grace, charis. But it also holds
its derivative, the Greek word chara,
meaning ‘joy’.”
Yes. YES. The reason for the name I chose for this
little business adventure I’m on. The
story behind it. This is it. And now, a deeper understanding of what the
word, and the act means.
You see, these things – Gratitude. Thanksgiving. Joy. I am from the bottom of my heart filled with
thanksgiving for being thankful. What’s
that? Yes, I am grateful for
gratitude. It may seem simplistic, or
cliché, but let me explain:
Without making this a story about depression or mental
illness, let me just share a bit about dysthymia. If you
have not heard of it, dysthymia is a kind of chronic depression, with less
severe or dramatic symptoms, although at times those with dysthymia may have an
episode of major depression. Because of its
less dramatic manifestation, it can go on for years before being
diagnosed. In my case, probably 10? Or more?
Beginning in about 2007 and culminating in the months after the birth of
my daughter in 2010, however, my symptoms did progress to – a turning
point. Or breaking point. Or truly, a split-open-fall-apart-and-let-Jesus-patch-you-up
point.
The birth of my daughter brought me to a point of facing my
depression diagnosis, and finding my way to the right treatment and care. I owe much of that to coworkers who know how
to recognize these symptoms, and could help connect me. And that I responded well and without side effects to the first medication I tried.
Over the past 2 years I have been utterly amazed to remember what joy and gratitude feel like. I had forgotten. And this joy is wrapped in respect and tender appreciation such as one might feel toward a tiny baby bird that needs to be protected and guarded and may also slip away if not guarded carefully. Knowing my diagnosis means also an understanding that it’s not gone just because I feel better. I wonder, what then? What happens if the cloud envelopes me again? What happens if I pass this on to my daughter? What if I stop responding to Zoloft? What if we have another baby and I have post-partum again? What if?....
But, then too, I am grateful for what I have now that I
didn’t before:
The simple act of labeling my diagnosis and understanding it is something I am deeply grateful for. And helps me calm the questions and the fears.
Anyway, this story is not really about that. But it helps to open the window to all that
“Charis” represents for me.
There’s more to this word Charis, “grace.” My daughter
– her middle name is Grace. This is not
a coincidence. I know more fully how
true that is. How becoming her mom and reaching a point of crying out and
stumbling toward help - that motherhood
itself is high on the list of the greatest eucharisteos I have ever witnessed.
When I think about it - twice now, really, that God has used a helpless infant to save me. To rescue me from a miry pit. As Elaina learned to pray over Christmas:
7. For the baby Jesus
So….
The launch of my business is one outward symbol of this transformation
– to do, to make, to connect, to initiate, to reach out, to appreciate, to
promote, to create, to network. These
things that I now do – I could not do them 3 years ago. So this, this little adventure in creativeness
and entrepreneurship, it means a lot. It
means SO MUCH. It means everything.
For those of you who might be reading this because you’re
interested in my handmade business and you’re thinking “Whoa….wait, this is
about JESUS? I thought it was about
papercrafting and making stuff!” I want
to say 2 things:
- Don’t worry, I don’t plan to use this forum to preach or promote an agenda; this is probably a rare post that looks so deeply at my heart.
- But yes, it is. It is about Jesus. I hope that you can appreciate that even if you don’t understand it, and that you’ll stick around to hear also about papercrafting and making stuff!
