I say thank you a lot, several times per day in fact. I pray the “thank you” prayer from the moment of my rising most mornings, several times throughout the day, right on through the time I take my rest at night. After a particularly difficult day, sometimes my thank you is more like, “thank you that I made it through this day in one piece and relatively in my right mind.” On those nights I go to sleep trusting that (a) I’ll wake up in the morning, and therefore (b) There’s a fair chance that this day just might turn out better than the last.
There are times when I can be incredibly hard on myself–I scold myself about all kinds of things that happen at work, at home, on the commute, in the grocery store. I sometimes keep up a running commentary of all the things I do wrong and have to stop myself mid-criticism when I realize what I’m doing. “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything,” my mother used to tell me. It should be at least as true for negative self talk as it would be if I were talking badly about someone else. But for a moment tonight I want to take a moment to go to the other extreme and say something nice about myself. I like me. One of the things I like is my ability to deal with the swirl and churn of uncertainty and ambiguity that is constantly flowing around me.
I, like many people, like certainty and stability. I don’t mind occasional fluctuations in the pattern, but there is something to be said about predictability and clarity. But, if I have learned anything from the wildly uncertain nature of my life over the past few years it is that very little is certain, stable, clear or predictable, and in fact much of my life seems to be exactly the opposite. So I am learning to roll with whatever is happening, as best I can, no matter what shows up. Some days I am better at this than others, but I strengthening my ability to let go of outcomes and plans and let whatever wants to emerge out of a particular situation come through. I do what I can with what the situation presents and hope for the best.
There are so many tools I’ve learned to apply in the various situations I’ve encountered beginning with letting go of expectations of what’s going to happen, persisting when the inevitable obstacles pop up and opposition is thrown at me, resilience (persistence and perseverance’s close relative) when I suffer the occasional setback, and of course, a grateful heart that says that however the situation turns out I will find the blessing in it and be grateful for it. Application of some or all of these tools and others in my bag stand me in good stead when I encounter the inevitable churn of whitewater flowing through my life.
I am grateful for it all, even and perhaps especially when I don’t know what’s going on around me. Don’t get me wrong, I curse and splutter when life gets crazy and complicated–I’ve got skills but I’m no saint–but at times I feel like a beach ball in water: you can try to sit on me and hold me down, but I inevitably pop back up. It’s a remarkable skill and I am grateful for it, even when I am baffled by where it comes from and why it seems to be limitless.
If the only prayer you ever say in your life is “thanks,” that’s enough. And it has been for me–even better than enough.
