Living Thanks

I was cleaning  my desk off the other day and had an accident. I don't know how it is in your house, but in mine the phone tends to never be on the cradle. I have found it in various places; in the basement on top of the washing machine, outside, in the garage and my personal favorite...in the refrigerator. Regardless, I was placing the phone in it's proper place and dropped it onto my computer. The screen itself did not shatter BUT the LCD display behind the actual plastic screen manifested a large crack.

Crap.

I rebooted the computer to no avail. The screen was toast and I made an appointment at the Mac store. I called my husband for reassurance that we had bought the protection warranty. He explained that it covers everything BUT the screen.

Crap!

I then went online to get a rough idea of what it was going to cost. According to all of the MacBook Air users who had been through the same trauma, it was not going to be cheap.

CRAP!!

I had lunch with a friend and then drove down to the store to get the bad news. I passed a church and read the notice board outside. I almost got into a car accident. The sign read as follows:

Live your Gratitude


Those three words sucker punched me. Not show your gratitude, or give thanks, but LIVE it. I pondered this all they way to the Apple store, where the nice hip young man asked me what happened. By way of explanation I turned on the computer. He took one look at the screen and shook his head. "A phone did this?" he asked. "Well, you see, I dropped it." I explained. It's not like I threw it. "It will be expensive," he says. "Yes- I know, please just fix it." I then cried about how much it was going to cost in the car.

I passed the notice board again on the way home. Live your gratitude. Those words began to distract me from self-pity. Live your gratitude. I began to think about how turning to Grace involves allowing all of the blessings in your life to empower and shape you as a person. How living in gratitude helps when crappy things happen. Accepting that they do in fact happen, but by embodying the blessings, there is a source of inner strength that dulls the edge of whatever pain one might be feeling.

I have this guilt complex where I get upset about things in my life that suck and over which I have no control. I then ruminate on how silly it is to feel sorry for myself when there are people all over the world who have it SO much worse than I do. So I try to suppress that anger or frustration which usually culminates in tears or anger followed by more guilt. I know guilt is a useless emotion, but that knowledge doesn't stop me from going there. Guilt is not the same as true frustration or sadness.

I have taught every single class with that theme leading up to Thanksgiving: Live your gratitude. Don't count your blessings, EMBODY them. Don't feel guilt for honest emotion- allow the strength of the Grace in your life to carry you through pain large and small. That strength will radiate.

I went to pick up my computer. The parts and service turned out to be free. I hugged the technician "Thank you SO MUCH! Happy Thanksgiving!!" A small unexpected blessing I am so grateful for and hope to embody and pass on to someone else.

Happy Thanksgiving. I am grateful for all of the amazing people in my life. I hope to express my gratitude by living it.