Thankful Thursday #168

"Wealth and honor come from You alone, for You reign over everything. Power and might are in Your hand, and at Your discretion people are made great and given strength.  And now, our God, we give thanks to You and praise Your glorious name... Everything we have has come from You, and we give You only what You first gave us!"  ~1 Chronicles 29:12-14

On this final Thursday of 2023, I am thankful for:

1.  A fun McAlister's lunch with Kristin and the boys yesterday! ❤ 

2. The Wilsons, aka my Tulsa family! ❤

 3.  The gift of empathy and feeling things deeply.  I'm often oblivious to the physical world, but hypervigilant in the emotional realm.  I am definitely getting better at controlling my emotions and catching any downward thought spiral before it leads into depression, and I'm slowly getting better at communicating what I'm feeling and processing to those who care enough to read/ask (and those who have earned the right to hear it). ❤

4.  I'm thankful for every inspiring woman who chooses self-respect and refuses to accept dismissal, gaslighting, and mistreatment, daring to believe that her inner life matters.  If you're like me and you've spent a great deal of time feeling unheard or overlooked, please join me and START SPEAKING UP.  Clearly, I'm still learning and gaining momentum here, "a work in prog-mess," but I do understand that victim mindset is never conducive to transformation. Others will rarely treat you better than you treat yourself -- so if you feel like you're being dismissed and minimized, there is a very good chance you've been dismissing/minimizing your own needs, emotions, fears, hopes, desires, etc.  So speak up and step up - it's okay to start small, but no one else can do it for you.  You are NOT inconsequential, and the change you're hoping to see in others can (and really must) start in your own heart.  Your voice matters, your heart matters, your story matters.  I’m pep-talking myself there. Gracious, I love the wording of this post:

5. Mom - she was concerned that there might be another cyst forming, but her medical scans and labs came back clean, and we're very thankful for that!

6.  Mini quiche (yum!), our random snack food while taking down Christmas stuff on Tuesday! =)

7.  Transition periods and the hope of transformation.  Seeing all the Christmas stuff come down and all the "normal" everyday home decor reappear over the course of six hours was good for my metaphor-loving heart.  I am getting tired of being in limbo in the messy middle part of certain life transitions, very ready to feel that I've achieved some real transformation... but I have another verrry full year of graduate school and internship ahead, and I'm dealing with self-doubt and rising questions and desperately seeking God's will and timing on motherhood, and it's best that I don't write much about health stuff right now as the spiritual warfare and negative messages have been pretty strong lately - it's the key area where I dismiss my goals, override God's wisdom, and minimize my own power, and that has to change, but choosing to be seen when you’ve been comfortably hidden is hard and scary.

Anyway, I have written and read a lot through the years about the parting of the Red Sea and the journey through the wilderness - how God is with us through the desert, and there is beauty in the journey and joy in the messy transition process.  But what my heart and soul need to hear and really soak in and believe right now is that there is a God-ordained 'Promised Land' ahead - a time when the hard-fought transition work becomes lasting transformation... where the journey reaches a desired destination... where you put the old Christmas boxes away and clean up the glitter mess and the kitchen table becomes functional again, and you get to rest and feel a sense of completion and victory in that particular story.  In other words, it's comforting to feel that you're not endlessly wandering in circles, looking for small joys in the midst of hard work.  In my three most meaningful life goals right now (a counseling career, building a family, and getting healthy - and they all feel connected), I've been feeling uncharacteristically discouraged and exhausted, weary and parched, and I need to be refilled with fresh HOPE and renewed strength for the remainder of my journey there, trusting that there are better things ahead, and that the vision God gave me WILL happen in His appointed time.  God used this real-life home transformation day to spark hope within me, and I am grateful! ❤

Amen to that!
❤