Praise for Heaviness

Heavy.
If I had one word to describe my last 2 weeks, it would be heavy. Though I am absolutely loving everything I'm doing, everything I'm learning and the people around me-everything I've been doing has felt heavy. It's like I've been walking through muck. This probably has nothing to do at all with my circumstances and everything to do with the fact that I can't seem to get 2 nights in a row that I actually sleep. It's crazy how lack of sleep can make everything feel so much worse than it actually is.

So. For this blog I've decided that I need to do or write something that's not heavy. We'll see how it goes...

Gratitude has this way of disarming things that seem to be threatening our growth or current circumstances. Gratitude has this way of taking our focus off of what's not happening and placing it on the extravagant things that are happening. Gratitude, I believe, is one of the things that our generation is missing on a fundamental level, and may just be the key to us becoming all that we want to be.

So, come on a journey with me. Think of your life right now, and no matter how 'bad' things feel work to look for the things you can and should be outrageously grateful and thankful for. Make a list and cultivate it in your life every day. I think you will be amazed and surprised at the dreams you are currently living out that you didn't even know you had. I know I am living out some things that I wouldn't have even known to ask the Lord for to begin with...but that's another blog for another time.

Let's cultivate gratitude.

Today...I am beyond grateful for:

• My love for really good coffee and people that make it for me.
• Beginning to put legs to my dreams concerning mission work
• my brain; the way I think, organize, strategize and even obsess over certain things. I am learning that I love the way that I think and that when I use my mind under the leadership of the Holy Spirit it is a powerful tool. 
• Being able to serve a Father at my church. I am learning so much just watching, observing and interacting with Paul
• My beautiful mission agency who loves so well, asks all of my questions and gives such beautiful covering.
• How the lord is providing in interesting, though unpredictable ways. The fact that for the first time in my life I don't have a physically taxing job that hurts my body. That though I have the lowest amount of income I've ever had, I still have enough to pay bills and eat well.
• My crazy awesome, incredibly talented fellow intern team. I mean, we are the dream team and could probably conquer the world with our gift mixes. Just saying.
• The power of healthy confrontation. It is so good for us to grow deeper through confrontation and holding 'accounts' for our abilities. It's uncomfortable but I am so thankful that God is teaching me to voice needs, concerns and to go to a deeper level with people. 
• My family...the promises we are walking into and even that there is nothing that can keep us away from each other.
• Getting to go to beautiful places.
• Friends who love to walk excessive miles and talk excessively while doing it. 
• Having a Christmas coming up that I will NOT be working retail for. (PTL!)
• My inherited ability to be able to bake, cook and create in that way....food should NOT be boring.
• Resounding hope that never stops because it is anchored in eternity.
• IT'S FINALLY FALL!
• The ability to grow, and God's grace when we get it wrong.
• My Swiss sister and our Saturday Skypes. She is constantly challenging me to be better and loving me when I'm not better. 

These are just a few of mine today...what are some of yours? It seems silly but I just feel like it's so necessary. For me, it's all too easy to constantly see what's not right, to see what I'd love to be different or to change. But today, may you see the potential everywhere because you see all the things that you are blessed with. 

I kind of view it as beauty for ashes. I know God is the one that exchanges beauty for ashes in our circumstances but I think it's time that we (and I'm talking to ME!) stop focusing on the 'ashes' of our lives, and start to focus on the beauty. Let's see the beauty and know that the ashes aren't too big for God to overcome. Let's exchange our heaviness for Praise. Let's be thankful and grateful for what is and continue to go on a journey trust Him for what is not yet.

Let's be overwhelmed not by heaviness, but by gratefulness today.

Blessings,

Lara