Good morning…
Following yesterday’s post, Expect To Be Grateful, all day long people in our written word community sent me simple things sparking gratitude. Our pets and our people. Admiring nature and noticing beauty. Savoring daily things like coffee and food, sky and sun, brisk walks and safe travels. We’re grateful for doctors and churches, dear friends sharing joys and sorrows, and the healing power of fervent prayer.
Then at the end of the day, I received this image to sum up our grateful day.
As we mature in our life of faith, we are empowered to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other.
There are many griefs to bear this week in our community. The sudden death of a son. The suicide of an eighth grade girl. Delivering a lifeless baby at thirty weeks. College students struggling to find their way. A scary diagnosis. Cancer continuing. Alzheimers advancing. Setbacks in recovery. Wars around the globe. Job loss and instability. Sweetly sending a beloved husband to heaven.
We carry these griefs in one hand and our simple gratitudes in the other. We are stretched large by them.
“How much sorrow can I hold?” asks Francis Weller. “That’s how much gratitude I can give. If I carry only grief, I’ll bend toward cynicism and despair. If I have only gratitude, I’ll become saccharine and won’t develop much compassion for other people’s suffering.”
“Grief keeps the heart fluid and soft, which helps make compassion possible,” Francis explains.
Please join me as we fill both hands full today, stretching wide to embrace it all, life’s simple joys and life’s aching sorrows. May we mature in our faith as we trust the Eternal One, who is actively at work among us. “For I have given rest to the weary and joy to the sorrowing” (Jeremiah 31:25, NLT).
…Sue…
