I can't believe it's already June and this is the first time I'm posting about my star word for this year. This tells me two things: 1) I disliked this year's word so much that I've almost entirely disregarded it, and 2) I am still wrestling with depression and in some ways with God.
The word that I drew out of the basket of words at church in January is "gratitude." The concept is great. It's just so obvious. I preach about it. I pray about it. I share daily thankfulness with my husband and one of my long-time friends. I can recite scriptures about thankfulness from memory.
I guess I was hoping for a more challenging word.
A colleague suggested to me that it's ok to just coast sometimes. I don't seem to be very good at doing that for very long. I take days off. I take naps. I'm set to take all my vacation and continuing education this year for what may be the first time since I became a pastor. I even had a three-month sabbatical last year. Gratitude should be a nice, easy coast.
Except that sometimes it's not. I've had some days when my mood was quite bad and gratitude was extremely hard. I can always say I'm thankful for my coffee, but when I say it I want to really mean it.
I don't like the memes that say "there's always always always something to be thankful for." It's true, but sometimes what I need more is to be allowed to be angry or sad or frustrated. There are bad days. Sometimes they happen for no good reason, and that makes them even worse. Sometimes there are reasons and those reasons are awful. Being thankful on those days feels horribly hypocritical, and it took me months to allow myself to skip the thankfulness on those sorts of days.
So that's probably why it's taken me till June to write about the word I got in January.
There's another reason, too. The person who continually encouraged me to write blogs moved away in January and died in February.
I know other people read them. Thank you for reading!
Most of all I'm thankful that I know that God is infinitely patient with me about all of this, as God is patient with us all.
Thanks, God.
. . .
P.S. I just scrolled back through past blogs and it turns out gratitude was last year's word! Sheesh. I don't even know what my 2025 word is. When I figure it out, I'll post again.
Maybe.
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