thanskliving

'isn't it funny how day by

day

nothing changes but when you look back,

everything is so 

different?'

c.s. lewis

i had a hard time deciding what i was going to pen about this week. truly, i've been thinking about this all week, trying to avoid the over personal and the mediocre. and then, this hit me.

when you're young, life is all about tomorrow. we get stuck in this preoccupation with destination; we are obsessed with the idea that happiness lies in the next place, next job, next person, next project. happiness always lies in tomorrow. isn't that why we put in work? why we do things like go to college, work jobs, make dreams? because happiness isn't here, it can't possibly be! it's over there; it's somewhere that isn't here.

that's our life experience: trying to create happiness in a future that we have no real way of viewing. we miss out on the exponential joy that touches us everyday. we are so blessed in things we don't think twice about. seriously, when was the last time you ever #blessed on an instagram photo of your toilet? we reserve the term blessing for the big things, the big moments, the big issues. but that's not where blessings really are. blessings lie in the fact that you woke up this morning, the fact that you are in the here and now. we are such fading things yet we live life like tomorrow is such a promised thing. you are a temporary vessel, live accordingly.

has the day to day ever seem to go by so slowly that it each day is it's own week? yet, when you look back a month later, things have flown by? this is how i feel every semester of college, every new season of my life. man, did c.s. lewis say it right. i'm at a stage in my life where my entire existence is centered around bettering and preparing myself for "the real world" aka another term for destination preoccupation.  i go to college to get a degree that will earn me a job, which will secure stability for my family and retirement and then one day, i'm will just be gone from this earth.  i get so stuck in this cycle of happiness being somewhere else that i lose sight of all of the amazing things happening in me now, in my life now.

so lately, i've been trying to pay gratitude for the smaller things in the here and now. i've been trying to reflect on these in quiet time, trying to stop the obsession, the worry, the intense need for control that i experience over tomorrow. never has the Lord let me down; i've always been provided for and i've always made it to the other side. it's a struggle to let go, and let God. man, do i know.  but you'll get through anything.

happiness is here. happiness is now. but sometimes it's about intentional recognition and rejoicing. it's about intentional reflection. because a series of small things can become a large then when joined together just as days become years. don't be about thanksgiving, be about thanks-living. positivity will be found in the smallest of things, and joy in the most forgotten experiences.  light can be found in the darkest of times if one just remembers to turn on the light as dumbledore said.

so remember, life is now. life is not tomorrow. the grass isn't greener in the future unless you water what you have now. take joy in what you have and stop lusting after people, places, and things elsewhere.  take some time to reflect this next month for just a few moments each day...i promise you'll realize that you are so #blessed. pay some gratitude to God.

therefore, do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself. each day has enough trouble of it's own. -matthew 6:34

give thanks in all circumstance- 1 thessolonians 5:18


an open letter:

God, thank you for allowing me the ability to go to college, to double major in my passions, to be able to get through it debt free. thank You for the extra change i find when i'm in desperate want of a coffee. thank You for the stranger that smiled at me on a monday morning. thanks for bringing my two rescue cats  into my life to keep me laughing. thank You so much for my family that listens to me and sacrifices everything to see me succeed, they show me what real love is; a glimpse at your love. thank You for unlimited checkouts at zuhl. thanks for providing for me when i never see a way out. thank You for rescuing me. and thank You for loving me, delighting in me, and helping me to grow.

p.s. i am super grateful to have indoor plumbing that includes pipes that can handle toilet paper (costa rica doesn't and yeah, let me say that it really makes you 'preciate that detail).

You're the real MVP. 

thanksliving's the new movement, y'all.