4 March Joy Dare

3 Gifts hard to give thanks for

1. life lessons. I am in the grip of an enormous life lesson at the moment. I feel like I am standing on the edge of a cliff and my choices are: do as you have always done, stay in your comfort zone (even though it doesn’t bring you comfort), or take a running jump into the unknown and see what happens.
At this point I am still considering the eno...rmous drop from the edge of the cliff, without thinking about the enormous possibilities from doing life differently. I read a book that talked about Jesus being a rope swing. We can literally hold on for dear life and jump off that cliff, swinging on the trust of Jesus, or we can stand on the cliff wetting our pants at the thought of the jump. Far out, it is a tough decision to jump. But what if....? (fill in the blanks) FEAR is the big one for me. Fear of the unknown and fear of what if it might be worse?
But in my experience I know that when I am standing on that cliff and then jump, I find true freedom, and have never been let down and disappointed yet. God always comes thru for me (or is it that I always come thru for God?)
So today I am thankful for the life lesson I am yet to jump into, knowing it will be good, and thankful for the opportunity to consider changing my life…watch this space to see what comes next…..

2. damaged people. The saying goes like this “hurting people hurt people”…and oh how they hurt! I am thankful for the person who tried to shatter me today…and nearly succeeded. His pain and venom was so intense I nearly felt a physical reaction. But I thank him for highlighting an area in me that needs to be resilient to people like him. And even though I hate the behaviour, I don’t hate the person, I actually feel very sad for him. So I am thankful too, that my heart has compassion, cos in this instance, it can only be from God!
3. mulch. (yes ladies and gentlemen, until it is moved, it will be a theme). I have moved over half now with the aid of four neighbours. (and I am very thankful to them). But I am finding it hard to be thankful for the gift my ex husband is giving me by not helping. Sure, I am happy to be doing some hard core physical work, but by this, day 5, my knee is really hurting and my forearms are fatigued. I was a bit bitter today trudging up 600 stairs laden with bags of mulch. So here, I say it – thank you ex, for choosing to not help (for your own private reasons I wont divulge here). I am sure you feel justified. In this time of mulching I have seen our kids climbing “the mountain” , shovelling their sand pit buckets, holding bags open and leading the way up the stairs to “make sure there are no toys in the way”….so these are fun times, and sure it is hard work, but it has been fun along the way too. And that’s worth being thankful for. Just sayin’…..