Gratefulness!

This morning as part of my devotional time I read Psalm 77. I’m not going to write it all out, you should really read it and check it out in your own life, but I’ll summarize it for you. Once I summarize it then I can reflect on it and you’ll understand what I’m going to say in this post.

The Psalmist is crying out to GOD for help day and night, but no matter how much he prays he feels his prayers are going unanswered. He wonders to himself if GOD has forgotten him or even forgotten to be gracious. He continues to search his self and his spirit asking questions inwardly if GOD has forgotten to be merciful, is he angry, has he lost GOD’s favor and the questions go on without answers.  Sound familiar?

Well if you won’t admit I will. Far too often we get ring around the booty! Yeah, ring around the booty that comes from sitting on the pity pot entirely too long.  Don’t know what the pity pot is, geez. It’s feeling sorry for yourself. Hands in the air if you've been there!

Well midway through this Psalm the Psalmist catches himself and says, wait a minute let me get up from here because my butt is hurting because this pot is stuck to it! Not actually in those words, but you get my drift. He begins to say I’m not going to focus on what’s going wrong or what’s not in the now, but what about all those things GOD has done for me in the past and HIS promises. As a matter of fact he goes beyond his situation and recalls things that GOD has done for HIS people and HIS creation.

Well I was lying in bed one morning and while I was lying there I realized that my butt was hurting. It was hurting so bad that I tried to see it in the mirror. I was looking for the red ring left there from the pity pot being stuck! I don’t know where it came from the thoughts the feeling of disappointment, but I began to get depressed even before the day had started. I thought about all of my bad decisions or indecisions,  lack of accomplishments and just what did I have to show for my life. Well GOD slapped me real quick! I think my neck still hurts HE slapped me so hard!

He took me over my life and reminded me of some things and showed me how HE’s heard me and brought things to pass without me planning or timing these things to be. Let’s travel through time:

 When I was an adolescent going into my teenage years I wished for a certain kind of guidance, if not from family then from some organization that understood girls my age and found none. I said to myself (subconsciously) one day I’ll be a beacon for females where they can go get support and ask questions they can’t get answers to elsewhere. So now here I am with an organization that focuses on female issues. http://www.intbn.org Wow, not my plan or design!

When I was fifteen I was in a car accident and doctors told my mother I would not survive and when I did they said that I may never walk again. While in the hospital I received some pretty poor nursing care and I said then that I was going to be a nurse to show what it meant to give good patient care. I've been a licensed and practicing nurse for almost thirty years. Huh, what!? Thirty years, how time does fly and yeah I was the valedictorian of my class.  

I used to tell my mother I didn't want to be a housewife, but wanted a career as a lawyer or journalist. I've written weekly columns here for one of the local newspapers. I write press releases and hey I’m writing this bog. Not to mention the book I’m trying to get published and the movie I've written that we're working on getting produced here.

I've mentioned before that even as a young girl I had a spiritual affinity for Africa without anyone in my family or school ever mentioning Africa.  Now here I am living in Africa for almost nine years, not by my plan or design.

I’m in awe of what’s to come next because I’m dreaming big dreams and it’s obvious that GOD has been listening and making my dreams come true.

If I told you from whence I came and where I've been you may not want to even k now me, but I know the darkness and now I know the light.

Be thankful, be filled with gratitude! Look at what you have and not what you don’t have, count your blessings even in the midst of lack, want and despair!