No Thank You

I successfully spent the one week of the whole year in which we are supposed to be thankful being immensely ungrateful.

I'd like to say I did it as a kind of revolt, or an offset, against all the people who are thankful only because the calendar tells them to and then go right back to their thankless lives as soon as the weekend is over. (Or, as soon as dinner is over and they get all consumer and go shopping for all the things they are now wishing they had, even though a few hours ago they were "content and so thankful for all their blessings.)

No, I actually spent the week being ungrateful because I'm a sinner and I do that a lot. National holidays do nothing to inspire goodness and purity when your heart is the problem.

I could make some excuses. For me, Thanksgiving week started on Monday at 6AM with a stomach bug that came out of nowhere. One moment I'm fine, the next ...

I quickly texted my boss to get the day off, and proceeded to spend the day wishing I was dead. By late evening I was technically better (considering I was still massively dehydrated and hypoglycemic), but I had to cancel work Tuesday as well because I didn't want to pass along any germs to my little boys, in case I was still contagious.

Wednesday, then, I was supposed to hang out with friends but those plans got canceled too because at my age, I'm finding that more and more often relationships are complicated. So, instead of having what would have supposedly been loads of fun, I stayed home and cleaned and did laundry. By the next day, in the middle of the 5k, I decided it had all just been too much (I don't recommend making decisions in the middle of a race). Call me a hormonal girl, but all I really wanted to do was sit down on the pavement and sob and let all the other runners pass me by.

But who does that, right?

So I finished that dang race, clocking two minutes faster than last year even though I hadn't trained and was still weak from being sick.

Since then, things have perked up a bit - mostly because I've decided to stop being a jerk. It may be easy (translate: fun) to be angry at the world and full of self-pity and wretchedly ungrateful...but it's not right. So, for the millionth time (I expect I'll have to do it another 10 million times at the rate I'm going) I'm laying down my pride and flushing out the anger... Because I can't live like that for long. Well, I could, actually, but I'd become a terror to those around me.

And, I don't want to go to Italy full of issues; I want to go to Italy full of faith. May as well start working on the the issues on this side of the ocean, then, right? Even though a change of scenery and people will help, just like a national holiday those things are really just encouragements to "be good." I've got to deal with my heart now (a verb phrase that means focus on Jesus, not myself), because Jesus is now and now is the favorable time and now is the day of salvation. You can't put off sanctification.