Lessons in Gratitude Day 903–A Moment of Grace

Lately I’ve been thinking about restarting a daily gratitude practice. That said, I am not at all certain I can do a daily blog as I did for some 700-plus straight days throughout much of 2012 and 2013. Still, I must confess to having suffered a bit of retrenchment, attrition not so much with regard to feeling gratitude and even expressing it, but something subtler than that. I am not entirely sure it can put it into words, but I feel like I lost something when I stopped writing this daily gratitude blog. There was a certain discipline to it that kept me focused each day not simply on being grateful, but in expressing and acknowledging it publicly. Somehow this daily practice kept me accountable to something, to someone(s) outside of myself.

Sometimes this created more pressure than I felt able to deal with, though each day I managed to write something. The perfectionist in me always wanted to write something wonderful, deep, insightful, funny, amazing. The pragmatist in me simply wanted to write something to meet my daily obligation, my promise to myself that I would focus on at least one thing each day that I was grateful for. Tonight, perhaps only for this night, I am returning to express my gratitude for grace.

You see, I have beens struggling of late–a number of internal battles about little things like my life purpose and if I have the strength and energy to keep working for social change/social justice when it seems at times to make little difference. I have come to yet another crossroads it seems. And the ones I come to are not simple little four-way stops where two roads intersect; no mine are more like those places where five different roads converge in one spot. Sometimes I have several roads or pathways in front of me and no idea which one to take. On the one hand I have the assurance that no matter which one I choose I will end up where I’m going. On the other, if I chose the “wrong” one, it will likely take me longer and I’ll endure all kinds of obstacles along the way.

So today I was pondering these various pathways and have been in prayer the past several nights, anxious and awake late into the evenings. This morning I was writing in my morning journal wrestling in writing with a variety of challenges and anxious thoughts, when suddenly a gentle wave of wellbeing washed over me. In the briefest of moments I was certain that everything is alright with me that, as Max Ehrmann said in The Desiderata, “whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.” I knew in that instant the absolute certainty of that statement. In spite of all my anxieties and fears and disappointments, all the unknowns and unanswered questions, in that moment of grace I knew everything is unfolding as it should. I should note that the feeling passed and much of the burdens and rocky emotions returned. Still, nothing could remove from me that momentary glimpse into the calm stillness at my core and the visitation from whichever form of Spirit chose to show up to remind me that all is well.

I am not capturing it the way I had hoped, but am oh so grateful nonetheless for the feeling of it. I don’t know why God/Spirit/Creator/Universe deals with me they way they do, but I am so grateful for the reminder that I am not in this by myself, as much as various circumstances might make it appear otherwise. I never (a word I don’t use lightly) take these moments of grace for granted; when they come, I accept them as the precious gift they are.

I am grateful to be back, if temporarily, in the blogosphere. I am not yet sure how often I will write. I hope some of my faithful readers will come back here periodically to see where my journey and gratitude practice might take me. I would like to make it to 1,000 days before the end of the year, but I won’t force myself to squeeze something out that doesn’t want to be born. So, we shall see. In the meantime, be blessed, be well, be grateful.

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