How To Say I Love You

Reading the message in a blog the other day, swallowing bits of gravel with each sentence, bits of fear, and knowing the anxiety I was battling, I spit out a tiny piece of rock. I have the path back to the beginning! To the heart of God, to the weapon against the despair, the fear and uncertainty. And when I handed my sister a copy of a devotional I used to set at my desk at work on bad pain days, when I told her it might help that person in her life who suffered so, when I watched her read the message, I knew without doubt that there is only one yellow brick road. One prescription that works for pain, for suffering, for anxiety and stress. Be Thankful. Give Thanks. Gratitude sinks a bad attitude.

And it was Ann Voskamp who taught me how to count, how to wield that one weapon, that one discipline to practice which offers this soothing balm to chronic pain, that quells complaints and bathes the mind with supernatural peace. When the problems linger, fatigue and pain cause soul amnesia, isn't giving thanks the antidote? Why is it so hard to remember this for each and every moment? Why is anxiety and worry so easy to cling to when pain and struggles follow you each day like a bad ex-boyfriend? Can gratitude settle the ongoing feud between fear and love waging war in the mind? 

Gratitude teaches me that I am not alone. That He knows all about what's going on and He won't forget about me. Telling Him thank you for the pain, the uncertainty, the struggle, doesn't that show Him I don't have to understand? That I trust Him, regardless.

All the tiny bits of gravel unloose from the throat and I release them. Thankfully. And with each ca-chink of tiny rock, with every ounce of gratitude I can muster up, I hear those broken hallelujahs rising from within once more. All over again as I say thank you for the hard, the good, the mundane, I see Him grinning wide, so pleased He must be when I tell Him I love you, regardless.

The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.

~Henri Nouwen~