I can’t quite make sense of my motivations for how I want to write today’s Gratitude List. I’m thinking too hard about thinking about it. You see, I have been complaining all day. Really complaining about how many things have been going wrong. I keep it sort of light, too, whining delivered on a platter of intended humor: “I think all the appliances and motorized things on this farm have had a conference and decided to break down at the same time.”
Pretty lame, actually, but that’s the place where you’re supposed to groan with empathy, and pity me my breakdowns: Poor woman can’t keep her food cold or drive her car, and her lawn’s turning to jungle. But I don’t think I am looking for pity, really. Well, perhaps a little commiseration. That’s such a great word, such a great idea. Let’s be a little miserable together at the unfairness of the world, and it will all seem a little easier to bear.
I have been making an internal list today (not necessarily intentionally) of all the things that have gone wrong. If I twist that list into my gratitude list in some artful way, I will have had my chance at a rant. But is that really gratitude?
I think it is. Yes, because this business of writing a gratitude list is not only about finding the wonderful things that do happen; it’s also about putting the brokenness into perspective, about spinning the story into something positive. Not for spin’s sake, but for gratitude’s sake. For the sake of centeredness and peace of mind.
In Pronoia, Rob Breszny talks about how when something goes wrong, we focus on that one or two or five things that aren’t working instead of the hundreds of things that are working. It’s about where you place your focus. The clocks still work. Gravity continues to hold me to Earth. The plants grow. The children laugh. The stovetop cooks my morning egg to perfection.
Today I am a Spin Doctor. Not in search of pity, except as it comes with a little good mojo for all my motorized things to work.
Gratitude List:
1. My father’s car, and his gracious sharing of it while Roxanne Buick is having herself repaired to pass inspection.
2. A new (to us) fridge being delivered this week, and the old one taken away with no extra effort from us. And working substitutes in the meantime. We’re so fortunate that we have the farm store fridge to tide us over until the new one comes.
3. The string trimmer works again. We can at least keep the edges tidy. And sometimes keep your edges tidy is just the thing.
4. Spinning.
5. Perspective.
May we walk in Beauty.
Mockingbird Chronicles 
I like you.
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Oh, Beth!!! Sometimes “everything is going wrong” and yet, it’s not everything. Many more things are going right. We have to be careful to dump all of those things on our Heavenly Father, who knows what we need even before we ask, instead of on our husbands, who feel the burden too, whether of time constraints, knowledge of how to fix it, finances to replace it, or just how to keep a wife happy. I’m still learning. It seems like, after 20 years of marriage (coming up Aug. 2) and 16 years in one place (coming up Aug. 15) all of our appliances should be replaced, but they’ll have to wait their turn. I choose between having everything frozen in the bottom of the fridge to having everything spoil at the 50 or 60 degrees in the top of the fridge. I have two burners working correctly on the stove, and am replacing parts on the wash machine…counters are deteriorating and will need replacing, and there are multiple other problems…not small problems either!
The perspective that I like to keep is: We’re all alive. My friend carried her bag of garbage out the door and was struck by lightning and killed. I have another day, a beautiful family, many good gifts around me, enough to eat (and more than enough) and clothes to wear and a roof over my head, a God who loves me and is providing for my every need. (How often do we have to pull back and let God determine which is a need and which is a want?)
I still often think of a German friend preaching on “Cast all your care upon him, for he careth for you.” He said that the idea in the Greek was, “unload” as in a dump truck. Dump them on him, unload those burdens on him….and I smile when I think of my friend, Ron Hershey, because of what he shared when we each had to share the story of our most embarrassing moment. Ron’s was when he got a new job working for, I think, a landscaping company, or at least a business that supplied such things. He was given an address and a small shovel and a truck loaded with mulch, and told to make the delivery. He drove to the place, worked crazy hard, wondering all of the time why they’d given him such a measly little shovel. All sweaty and exhausted, he returned to the business, only to have them look at him funny and ask him what could have possibly taken him so long! They’d forgotten to tell him that he was driving a dump truck. How often do we try to empty our truck load of troubles with our puny little shovel, getting all hot and sweaty and angry, when we could just dump the whole load on Jesus. “Come to me, all ye who are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest. ”
Sorry for seeming to preach at you. I don’t mean it that way. What I loved about this blog was the “Spinning” idea. You see, we can take all of the troubles and spin the beautiful yarn of words (and our children, and our husbands and our parents and our friends see and hear our words) and from the yarn of words, weave a beautiful life! You already know that….you are a writer and a Weaver! Love you! Judi
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