In America, lets be real, no one has to trek two miles to a well to fill a bucket for drinking water, more like: "hmm... 'Auquafina', 'Dasani', oooh 'Pure Life', or maybe whats this? 'Arrowhead'? that sounds cool, probably something Legolas would drink...but hey, you can't go wrong with 'Smart Water', right?! It has a pretty groovy bottle after all." really people? but honestly that's how the majority of us think!
So, to not fall prey to this sort of thinking (though I do....some the time...gee wiz, okay, almost all the time) I try to pray everyday that God would make me thankful for everything I take for granted. I've been praying this same thing for quite a number of years now, and though, yes, I was definitely thankful for things of course, there didn't seem to be a whole lot of difference. I realize now that I wanted God to just reach down and -POOF- make me thankful all the time- I might as well have wished that they wouldn't label everything in the 1960's Batman!
This year, however, God helped me to do just that, be thankful. Earlier, somewhere at the beginning- mid fall, the car I use (my precious, silver, dented Kia) started having issues so I had to switch over to using my grandmas old car she gave to my family. Don't get me wrong, my grandma is rad, she's the raddest thing since the portable tape player. but still- it wasn't my Kia. The biggest downside? The front passenger window is stuck. DOWN. Yes, you heard correct, peeps- down. So, its getting into fall, and I have to drive on the highway with it at least once a week for about 50 mins, if it didn't occur to you, this can get quite chilly. I do blast the heat, yes, or I wouldn't be here to tell you this story today.
The weather as you, my scholarly reader, gets colder and colder as the year goes on, so then came the mid-end of November. I was getting pretty frustrated with having to drive this car, and having to look like I was gearing up for yeti hunting every-time I went for a drive. We tried taping the window shut with plastic but every time, without fail or consulting me, it would tear off. I was lucky when the plastic would just blow off, the worst times were when I was going 70 mph, it rips and then starts flapping around, honestly, as loud as a gunshot. I had to pull over three separate times to repair/pull of the plastic because the sound was so bad, almost as bad as having the song "Gangnam Style" stuck on replay.I was pretty embittered that, out of everyone in my family I was the one that had to drive the dreaded red car. Then, one night, while driving home with a blanked on my lap, gloves, a hat, long-sleeves, two hoodies, a Starbucks coffee and the heat on 'hell-fire'- it hit me (not literally, of course, cause that would just be weird).
-Maybe this is God's answer to my prayer-
You know the saying,"You don't know what you have until it's gone"? (excuse my Psych reference but-) You know that's right! I don't think I will ever take windows and car-heating for granted again (at least, one can hope). So I realized that praying for God to make you thankful seems easy but the process TO thankfulness we usually miss or misinterpret.Maybe there is something going on in your life like this, maybe less grim than this, or possibly not so lighthearted but if you are trusting in Christ, that he has a purpose for all that He does, believe me, it will turn out for the better.
To sum it all up, I still pray that God would help to make me thankful for things I take for granted, but I also ask that He would give me the strength to do so. <3
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Oh, and the car window is still stuck down.
“Perhaps it takes a purer faith to praise God for unrealized blessings than for those we once enjoyed or those we enjoy now.”
"Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him, bless his name! "
-Psalm 100:4
“Those blessings are sweetest that are won with prayer and worn with thanks.”
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