Thankful Thursday: Joy Dare Week 4

This week has not been so awesome. I knew those days, those moments, would come, but I'm not enjoying the icky feelings that have been sticking with me much of this week, and these are certainly moments where I DON'T FEEL LIKE GIVING THANKS, thank you very much. Yet I trudge on, 3 little things every day. One thing, one day, I simply wrote after "it", the thing that was not awesome that day, "can I be thankful for this?" I'm not sure I succeeded at gratitude. But I wrote it down. I tried. Maybe in a day or 100 days I will learn what to be thankful for because of it. One hopes.

Sunday's sermon was about prayer and my pastor relayed an idea from C.S. Lewis (as he tends to do, being as he is a big fan of Lewis) that prayer is about relationships, and when the relationship between us and God is not 100%, we should engage in practicing the discipline of prayer anyway. Lewis said (something like) a practice of prayer is the cast around what is broken that helps us along until what is broken is healed and healthy and strong.

Day 20something and I'm not keen on thinking of 3 things. But I'm going to do it anyway. There are still good things and this practice, as crazy-hard as it is some days, is healing. Because I do this, I am reminded of other, good, wonderful, beautiful things - and for that I am thankful.

Things on my gifts list this week:

54. A gift from God's word:

"My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever"
- Ps 73:26

57. helping one friend pack up for a move (which, thankfully, is a local move, or I would have a much harder time being thankful...)

59. hours spent with a friend, relaxing and chatting over some coffee. Mmmmm.

And a photo. My jobs give me reason to be creative in problem-solving, organization, etc., but not to be artistically creative. In my free time, I try to make time to create pretty things.