Perspective, Day 10

I said a strange prayer on the way home from church Sunday. I was frustrated because I had to stay an extra 30 minutes waiting for the last parent to retrieve their child from Sunday school. I’m quite often frustrated, there’s always something, but Sunday was my last day of vacation and I wanted to spend it peacefully with my husband. After the 30 minute delay I could see myself walking through the door, grouchy, grumbling, and irritated and then ruining the whole evening. I’ve noticed as of late, that my grouchiness is more and more quickly altering the mood of my husband. So while I quickly drove home to be with Jesse, I asked the Holy Spirit to do a work in my heart. I heard myself asking and then I doubted for a moment that any change would occur. Then I said, Holy Spirit could you please fizzle away the negativity. I pictured an anointed fuzzy solution working its way through my heart and dissolving all of the yuck. That alone made me smile. Then I began to thank God for all the good things that had come out of me spending an extra 30 minutes with that one small child. I also thanked Him for the last few hours of vacation that remained and for my wonderful Jesse. I walked through my front door totally calm, peaceful and my heart was completely cleaned of all the regular grouchiness.

I repeated the same prayer yesterday morning. As I drove to work for the first time in 10 days I was completely expecting an awful day. I could feed intense negativity and frustration welling up within me. I already felt home sick and hadn’t been away for even 10 minutes. I saw very sore feet in the near future. Vacations are wonderful but returning to work once they’re over is horrific. As I drove to work I asked the Holy Spirit to fizzle away all the yuck building up inside of me, once again. And then, again, I thanked God for all of His goodness that I could already see working in the day that lay ahead of me. I’m happy to report that the Holy Spirit came through. I faced the day with calm, a gentle peace, no negativity or frustration and when all was said and done my feet didn’t even hurt.

Sort of a long story just to arrive at what I actually wanted to say; I’m fascinated by the fuzzy fizzy Holy Spirit bubbles that calmed my grumpy heart. Both times I said my silly prayer I was instantly motivated, I mean I felt a sudden compulsion, to cover the frustrating situation with thanksgiving. The technical name for the fizzy solution the Holy Spirit used on me was “thankfulness.” Isn’t that elementary? But it’s true, it really worked. Thank the Lord!

Be constant in prayer, and watch in it [prayer] with thanksgiving.
Col. 4:2

(I truly, truly believe that this phrase “watch in it” is parallel to faith. To me the author is saying that with a thankful, I’ll even add joyful and appreciative spirit we should see those things which we’re praying for)