the way of gratitude

Tomorrow my boys will go to school,

while their American friends have begun

making their way to gather with family for Thanksgiving.

Though we find ourselves in Thailand this year

I cannot deny the value of pausing to reflect on what I am grateful for.

Yesterday I read an article about how gratitude is related to mental health

Studies show that gratitude can actually help with anxiety and depression!

Wow, that's good news...

especially for someone who knows what anxiety and depression can feel like!

So it must be good for me (all of us) to practice gratitude.

Admittedly I am a person who notices the cup half empty.
It takes real intentionality for me to pause and be thankful...
not a flippant kind of thankful, but a deep sense of gratitude.  

So how does one begin this practice of gratitude?
And how can I be grateful when there are things I am simply not happy about in my life?

Say...health issues.  How do I choose gratitude instead of discouragement when health issues continue? 

Or how about my friend who is reminded of her son's abrupt death over the Thanksgiving holiday...how does she practice gratitude in the midst of holding this grief? 

And then there's the world and local news...just one minute of reading/watching news, and that can leave gratitude feeling awkward and half-hearted.  

How can I choose gratitude when there are so many problems in our world?

and yet...

how can I afford not to choose gratitude?

without it I find myself downcast

lost

discouraged

Sure, on a day when the world seems bright and sunny

Gratitude feels natural

easy

smooth

But it's in the very midst of the darkness

or the struggle

that gratitude stops me in my tracks

makes me turn 180 

reminding me of something bigger

One greater than myself

what I see is small

microscopic

finite

short-sighted

What if gratitude connects me to the bigger story

the bigger picture

a reminder that I belong to this bigger story

and I can find myself comforted that all shall be well

not today, maybe

not even tomorrow

but there is more than the darkness that catches my attention

Can I see the candle flickering

drawing me towards the light?

inviting me to lift my eyes up

and thus my heart lifts up as well

Can I dare to give thanks

even if at first it feels unnatural

even if at first it feels like sacrifice

but slowly

surely

gratitude begins to flow

and like healing balm

I find myself lost ...if even for a moment...

in something that feels like joy.

my husband helps me notice beauty, I'm grateful for him! :-)

Drinks Thai style

  

Food. We all think about food don't we?  It's one of those topics we can go on and on about. It identifies a culture and a place.  The smells of cooking distinct to each culture.  In Thailand you can often catch a whiff of fish sauce on the street as you walk by a food vendor (lots of restaurants here are open air, which means you smell what is being cooked and served as you pass by.  That can be a good thing, or maybe not a good thing (especially if you don't like fish sauce...) But some of the fun discoveries for my kids have been passionfruit.  An abundance of passionfruit here!!!  This first picture is of a passionfruit juice, seeds and all, that was served at one of the restaurants my friend and I visited.  YUMMY!!! (Oh, and notice the bamboo straw, this restaurant was all savvy about no plastic use!)

 And then there's my beloved Thai coconut.  Mmmm. When we moved back to Florida we thought all coconuts were created equal.  We couldn't understand why all the Floridians would leave their ripe coconuts on the tree and then hire a yard worker to come cut them out and take them away.  After trying a few (we would ask some of these yard workers how to get our hands on these coconuts) we realized why Floridians don't appreciate coconuts.  Blech.  Nothing like the Thai coconuts.  There were a few occasions when I would break down and pay $4 for a Thai coconut imported all the way to Florida.  Here, we pay a dollar and they cut it open and serve it with a straw! (yes, a plastic one).

And then there are the drink offerings placed around town at sacred spaces.  The Thai are Buddhist and if you come here you will see little (or big) spirit houses (a little version of a temple that marks a space sacred) with various drinks and food placed as gifts to the spirits.  Here you can see passerby's placed a smoothie, and lots of red Fanta (a sweet red soda) for the spirits.  Lots of plastic straws! :-). 

And though not specific to Thailand--there's the comfort of finding something familiar in a foreign country.  Ironically I don't usually visit Starbucks in the states, I prefer the local coffee shops.  But when I come to Thailand I find that Starbucks feels familiar and comforting.  One morning I had some time to waste and found myself inside of Starbucks.  Notice how there's the golden touches in this particular Starbucks!  You gotta hand it to them for making it "Thai" style, while keeping it's classic cool vibes going.  There's still plenty of local coffee shops, but when I need that American fix, there's Starbucks to the rescue!

the ninth month

We came to the Bahamas for our annual summer vacation.  For the fourth time we crossed the waters from Florida's shores to the shores of the Bahamas.  A luxury of our life lived in Vero Beach for the last four years.  And possibly our last time to cross over on our own boat...as we soon will sell this part of our Vero life.  Making room for new things.

A pause...to enjoy this beautiful gift of the Bahamas with friends, both old and new.  We have friends from our Kentucky days who come to the Bahamas in June...they have known us since before we were married.  They knew us as we said yes to marriage, and then watched us leave for Laos.  And then they watched as we came back.  Their hearts were stretched as we came into their lives, only to leave again.  And they still loved us through it all.  And amazingly, our children love each other in a special way.  I am always in awe at how our four children play together as if they're cousins.  Not missing a beat.  No initial shyness.  Just instant falling into place with each other.  A true gift.  I have savored this over these last four trips to the Bahamas.  Our meeting place. Where Kentucky and Florida intersects and we can feel as though we are neighbors again.

And then we have shared the Bahamas with new friends from Florida.  This year friends joined us and we were able to share a place of deep treasure and meaning with these new beloved friends.  Friends we soon will be saying good-bye to as we change continents.  Friends who will join in with our Kentucky friends in feeling their hearts stretched.  And we, too, will grieve as we say good-bye.

But this visit is different.  This year feels unlike the previous three summers spent out here.  Because unlike the past summers the Bahamas has been a vacation in our summer...a pause from our normal before we return to our normal.  This time, we do not return to normal.  We do not pause in the Bahamas before returning to life as usual in Florida.  We go back to a very harsh reality that all must be taken off the walls of our beloved Vero home, packed in boxes. Given away. Packed in suitcases, shipped to Thailand.  All is changing.  Horizons will look different when we go back. And so I feel internal restlessness as I come to a beautiful place that is supposedly a place of rest...

I sat with this the other day and realized it was like the ninth month of pregnancy.  The month that feels endless, and yet we all know with our rational brains it WILL come to an end.  As the body is stretched to a very uncomfortable position.  The swollen stomach hides the feet.  You know they are there, but you can't see them.  And even if you bend forward to glimpse them, they are swollen.  Nothing is the same.  Nothing is normal.  The baby is taking up space, taking up oxygen.  Everyone is uncomfortable.  And while the previous months were the needed space to prepare and transition from old normal to new normal, this last month leaves you so ready for your body to come back that you are finally ready for this baby to come.  This baby that will bring a multitude of unknown into your life.  You will never be the same.  There is no going back to what was the old normal.  And who knows? Will this baby be happy? A crier? A sleeper? Will you be a good mom? Will you feel an instant bond or will you find yourself catapulted into postpartum depression? Who will know...But at this moment, your body is so stretched and uncomfortable...you are ready to dive in...

As we sit in this awkward space of just over a month until we move, I am very aware that nothing is normal.  There is NO normal.  The Bahamas is not my home.  And when I go home, it will soon not be home any longer.  We are in transition.  And there is no way forward but to pass through the birth canal into a new reality.
And this birth was planned long ago...we stepped in and said yes to a new reality.  In fact we were in the Bahamas last summer when we got the email that said "Pete, you got the position! We want you to come work with us!"  And we said yes to return to Thailand.  We stood looking at our old and familiar horizon with a twinge of excitement in our hearts at a possibility of a dream coming true.  We had time to feel the excitement, and then to say yes and step in.
And here we are in the ninth month.  Waiting.  Expectant.  Uncomfortable.  Hopeful.  Scared.
It comes with pain, and it will come with beauty.  New life is waiting...

moving thoughts

As we get close to moving day, I feel a swirl of emotions.  It is a space of liminality...neither fully here, while not there either.  We are in that strange place of betwixt between.  Most of our conversations with people are around our leaving "Are you excited?" which is a hard question to answer because right now in the midst of moving, I don't feel a lot of excitement.  But if I say no then it sounds like we don't really want to move.  If I say yes, it feels hollow because right now we have SO much to do to make this move happen.  And I'm doing my best to live in the present moment.  So, I usually say "yes and no"...and then explain if they give me a wee bit of time to do so.  Yes, we are excited about this move...it is our dream!  That is what propelled our decision to do this crazy move (yet again) across the ocean.  But right now in this moment? No, I don't feel a lot of excitement because most of the time my thoughts are around how our present tense life is slipping away.  Our friends, our home, our daily sites, the beach...soon all will be new and different.  We will drive new roads, we will go to a new school, new grocery store, new friends, new church, new, new, new...

And we will not see what we see now anymore.

There is both excitement and expectancy

while there is also sadness and grief

And isn't that true when big transitions are being made?  It is rarely straightforward.  We can feel so many emotions all at once.

Last night I asked my son if he was feeling excited about our move to Chiang Mai.  Yes, I asked him the dreaded question that people keep asking me.  I mostly asked it to test his response.  He's my quiet child who doesn't express his emotions (unless it's the extreme ones like anger, or crying because he's hurt...)  To know what's going on inside of him is always a curios thing for me...  And he said "yes and no".  Then he quickly said "no...friends", "yes...mountain biking".  Ha! The insights you get from a child's mind.  He went on to say other no's, and other yes's.  Other reasons he is excited and not excited about this move.  Why did I ask him this dreaded question?  Because I was trying to help him pause for a moment and process what is happening to his world.  For 4 years my boys have had a stable home.  Not everything has been easy.  But our sense of home has been rooted in a single place.  This is the longest stretch we have ever lived in one home (since Pete and I got married!)

Change.  So much change.  It's a time of simplifying, purging, making space for new things.  I am sifting through old memories, wondering which ones to keep in physical form.  Which memories are enough to hold internally alone.  

Making space...

for new things

This is not an easy thing to do.  But I think that we all long for space in our lives.  To lighten the load of what we carry around, internally and externally.  But it's rare that we have reason to force this to happen.  Moving is a great time to force what is not natural for us.  To lighten our loads.  To let go. To release. To part with old things. To make room for what is new.

But now is the time for us to take advantage of what is not natural

and make space for something new

and to also appreciate the goodness of these last years.

It's a sentimental time

and it's an expectant time

And yet, it is also simply this moment

today.

trying to put memories in boxes

time to move
and pack our things
memories scattered
some here some there
and when I try to pick them up
and put them in a box
they slide through my fingers
and down into my heart
I reflect on what has passed
so quickly
sometimes so slowly
but now
they are but memories
some forgotten
until I see a mark
reminders of life once present
now just faded memories
collecting dust
for so long I have stored them
in closets
under beds
deep down
one day I will organize
and now that day has come
soon life will take us across the ocean
and this life will become a memory
though still present now
I am somewhere in the middle
through tears
I sift through what to keep
what to toss
but plastic bins
certainly don't equal the life lived
what I really have is right now
this moment
and it too will pass
but right now I pause
and I am present
savoring what is
noticing what won't be much longer
but it won't quite fit into a box...just yet

a sacred gift

ode to Christmas
the stores start stocking sometime in late August
we might even see Santa as early as July
but really it's December
that I feel ready to bring it all home
but then I find the month passes too quickly
with every day full on the calendar
shopping, parties, candy, mid-term finals
it's all a swirl
and soon the day is here
i have hardly paused to contemplate
the true meaning of it all
but Santa smiles over and over again
as innocent children sit a bit scared on his lap
and we all instagram our photos for friends to see
but who can remember what it is really about anyway
frosting on cookies
plans to travel or host
December is the busiest month of all
just look at my iCalendar and you will see
though yours might be busier
I didn't get invited to many parties this year
but that's ok
nor did we get a Christmas photo sent out
that's ok too
maybe next year
maybe we will remember to take it in August
but this year, December came fast
and now it's nearly Christmas
and then all the wrapping paper that was carefully taped
will be a big pile of trash
children will be well fed
well supplied in all their wants
and parents will lean back and long for rest
as their children run all around trying out their new toys
but somewhere someone
will sit in the quiet
perhaps it's you
perhaps it's me
perhaps it's someone who once knew the noise
but this year it's quiet
lonely
different
not quite what they had planned
sometimes life brings surprises
and yet,
that is what the first "Christmas" was...
a surprise
not expected
the world was going on as usual
and a young naive mother
was welcoming a little baby into the world
she did not have a midwife
only a first-time father to watch the event
as the first cries filled the stable
and a relieved mother held her baby
were the animals aware of this unusual event?
or did they go on as usual
while the mother and father marveled
such a normal common event--giving birth to a baby
yet knowing this baby was not "normal"
but a gift from the Divine
beholding this gift in awe
pausing for a moment to embrace
something so "normal"
yet so extraordinary and full of hope
As I sit in a quiet moment with my coffee
I attempt to imagine myself in that story
Wanting to embrace somehow the mystery
of that first Christmas day
When the gift was truly special
something that we truly needed
something that held hope and expectancy
something sacred
I pause
and for a moment I am reminded
that though my children will receive gifts
I somehow want to behold
that first sacred gift
to be in awe
to see
to savor
yes,
Jesus
a gift for us all
and yes,
I know
that I need this gift

does grace expire?

does grace have an expiration date?
as in "a few days should do it for you" and then...let's move on now
do you ever feel like it's ok to have a day or two to struggle
and then day 3 you should be ok
do you ever find yourself shaking your head at yourself
what's your problem?
still struggling with that?
why can't you just get over it by now?
and you find yourself
discouraged
down
anxious
weary
alone
because if you can't allow yourself grace
then surely others can't allow you grace
and so you can't let them know you are still struggling
alone.
but does grace really have an expiration date?
a certain amount of time that you are allowed to struggle?
does grief have an expiration date?
a certain allotment of time that you are allowed to grieve the loss of a child
or a parent
or a friend?
grief comes in waves...
some days grief is intense
some days it feels manageable
some days you find yourself feeling ok
and then grief hits again
but isn't the same true for our struggles in life?
isn't grace a daily need?
can we allow ourselves grace
EVERY
DAY
day after day
moment after moment
and as we taste grace
we may be surprised to find that our struggles begin to pale
just the weight of feeling like there is no grace left
is a weight that feels unbearable
that leaves us feeling condemned
condemned that we "still struggle"
but when we are met with grace
again and again
our hearts are changed
we are changed
we begin to taste and see
how good God is
how good love is
how loved we are
how loved I am
does grace ever expire?
does it ever run out
does it ever come to an end
or is it us that withholds grace from ourselves
is it us that stops believing there's enough grace
even for me
even today
even when I find myself still struggling
"my grace is sufficient for you...
my power is made perfect in your weakness"
what would happen if we allowed grace to meet us each day
day after day
moment after moment
would we sense a lightness in the struggle
a light in the darkness
a presence in the valley
knowing we are not ever meant to go alone
not ever meant to carry it from here
grace
grace
grace
it's still here for you
today
grace