Monday mornings are notoriously bad for me.  The thoughts of what needs to be accomplished in any given week tend to overwhelm me before I even get started.  This week is Thanksgiving.  This Monday greeted me with all of the usual stresses, plus a few more.  I could delineate them.  I could explain precisely why I was overwhelmed this morning.  They all ran through my head countless times before I really even got my day going.  I was afraid of what this day, this week, would look like.  I noted to myself, rather cynically, how it would be this week of Thanksgiving that I find especially undoing to any sense of thankfulness that I might otherwise feel.

But I prayed.  Really, desperately, prayed for a different perspective.  Being grateful is a struggle for me on my best days, and I know that it wears on my soul – having only problems constantly filling my vision – and it robs me, and those around me, of peace and joy and hope.  I know it does.

And today, I didn’t want to be okay with it.  I wanted to find some way…or, rather, I needed God to help me see some way…to change my outlook.  At first, there was a gentle admonishment to see my problems in light of the struggles many other people face.  Um, yeah, petty might begin to describe my issues.  Then, there were reminders of provision – recent, tangible ways that God has brought peace and hope in the midst of what I felt were hopeless circumstances.  And there was Psalm 91 – my random opening-my-Bible-and-hoping-God-will-show-me-something act of desperation this morning – where I was reminded that God’s provision, protection and deliverance often come in the midst of difficulty and distress.

I want to be a thankful person.  Not in the sense of trying to wring some kind of good out of something obviously bad, but in the sense of knowing that I have a God who can get me through the bad, who can bring victory in spite of circumstances, who can save me from the snares that life may put in my path.  I want to be a hopeful person, to be able to recognize, confidently, that there is an all-powerful God who is going to take the worst pieces of these days and work them together for my good.

I’m sure it’s a process.  But today, He helped me see past myself, past circumstances, past fears, to glimpse His face, to adjust my perspective, to have hope, to realize how much in Him I have to be thankful for.