*Author's Note- It's been a LONG time since I've written anything new for my blog! There's been so much going on, a lot of hardships endured in our family... We'd no sooner start to adjust to one, then another would hit. It's been a wild ride! But I'm hopeful that we're finally coming to enough stability to allow me to devote time to writing again. Your prayers for that would be appreciated.
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Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.- Philippians 4:8
A few weeks ago, I encountered my 3rd-born child, a daughter with a very sensitive heart, looking sad and writing something on a piece of paper. I stopped to see what she was writing, and saw it was a list, and asked if I could see what she was listing. Turns out, she was making a list of the bad things that had happened that day to make her sad. "Oh Sweetie, I'm sorry you had such a bad day! I'm sure these things must have really hurt, especially all in one day like that!" With tears in her eyes, she confirmed that it had. So I hugged her for a while, then said, "I don't think you really want to make this list, though, because it'll just make you even more sad, I think. How about making a happy list instead, one in which you write down all the things you can think of that have made you happy? That sort of a list might do more to make you feel good on sad days like this one. What do you think?" She agreed, and proceeded to make a nice list of joyful things, one that was longer than her sad list. And pretty soon, I was watching my beloved daughter bounce around the house with a smile on her face again.
It occurred to me, though, that even while I was teaching my daughter, that there was a lesson there for me, too. Like the old, much loved hymn, Count Your Blessings states, "Count your blessings, name them one by one; Count your many blessings, see what God hath done." When we do this, we become aware that even when things are bad, we still have much to be thankful for, and that thankful heart helps put us in a state of mind in which we're better able to stand against the bad things in life. As a Christian, I already knew this, as it's played out in my life often enough. But my mind continued to nibble at this thought, not quite letting go of the concept, probably because there was something more for me to learn from it (isn't it funny how often that can happen?) It wasn't for a couple of more weeks, though, that I got an inkling of what I needed to figure out...
First off, though I think there's plenty to commend about such a person, I am NOT a Pollyanna type, and am not likely to ever be one. I consider myself more of a 'realist', able to look at the whole picture and see both the good and bad and accept that this is just the way it is. I tend to think that this is important for changing things for the better, because if you refuse to acknowledge that anything is bad, what's the point of putting any effort into making things better? After all, why fix what isn't broken, or at least not broken enough to be worth mentioning? I see myself as quite practical about looking at the whole picture, of stating that something is both good and bad in various ways. I have no problem with accepting both the good news and the bad news in whichever order they are given, because I fully expect that regardless of which I hear first, there's going to be something on the other side of the equation to be heard as well. I just take it all as part of the big picture. I report things that way, too: "Yes, my joint pain is much better, but I've been so very tired," for instance. This drives my beloved husband (who I sometimes suspect is directly related to Pollyanna) crazy sometimes, because he equates this with negativity. (Never mind that Pollyanna is a fictional character... sometimes I suspect my hubby, with his obsessive focus on only the positive, is, too. He's even said he plans to donate his body to science fiction! So I rest my case!) My husband would always much rather focus only on the good, and leave the not-so-good unmentioned. He gets praised for his positive attitude all the time. Most of the time, we just don't see eye to eye on that.
But I'm thinking there's more merit to his way of seeing things, sometimes (And no, my dear husband, you may not record this on the calendar. That would be a negative thing to do. Just saying.)... If I'm being really honest with myself, I have to admit that sometimes the negative side of that "whole picture" equation seems much bigger than the positive side of it, especially when I'm feeling depressed and overwhelmed by the hardships with which I'm struggling. Those are the days when I may count my blessings but then immediately find fault with those blessings, "I'm thankful we own our own home, but this house is such a wreck and needs so much work to be a nice place to live!" or "I'm thankful for my four unique and generally awesome children, but they're driving me insane with tattling, petty bickering and making messes!" Hmm... doesn't really sound very thankful, does it? Let's try it again, "I'm thankful we own our own home, whose walls have enclosed much love and laughter," or "I'm thankful for my four unique and generally awesome children, who are always ready to give me hugs and share giggles over something goofy." Much better. Seems to me that when the equation has already been stacked towards the negative side by a sad sort of mood, perhaps that's when one ought to think only about the good side of the big picture, regardless of one's usual propensities and arguments in favor of such propensities. Then perhaps we can bounce back from those bad moods almost as fast as my daughter did on her sad day, after making her happy list.
"Father, thank you that there's always good news, something good to focus on, no matter how bad our temporary 'now' might be. Thank you for showering us with so many blessings to sustain us through the hardships, and for always using those hardships to rain more blessings upon us, sometimes from unexpected sources. Help us to always keep our eye on those "whatevers" that are good to think about. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen."
