A New Thankfulness

I came in from the garden the other day, simply thankful for being brown. I was brown before the days of tanning beds. As a matter of fact, I was in school a couple of years before the Civil Rights Movement and I was the darkest child in my school. I have always been "proud" of my tribal heritage, and pride may not be the right word or right attitude, but I am grateful. I like the fact that I don't sunburn. I'm grateful that I don't know what a sunburn feels like. So, as I came in from my gardening session, and was just truly enjoying basking in brownness, the phone rang and gave me something else for which to be thankful.

I didn't get into caller ID when it was first introduced, but now it is automatic on every phone service and phones, and after the call I received the other day, I'm grateful for caller ID. Now, if I can just remember to keep some glasses by the phone, I'm set! Caller ID isn't my big issue of thankfulness, but I'm going to be faithful in the little things. My point of gratitude and a genuine changed perspective did come through that phone call.

First, I've come to a new thankfulness when things don't turn out the way I'd hoped. Sometimes we just can't imagine what our Heavenly Father is trying to spare us of, when we are trying to make things happen. So, with the phone call, I became very thankful that things had not worked out the way I had first hoped. Then through the course of the conversation, I'll admit it, I got my feelings hurt being reminded of my past. It's taken me a couple of days to truly be able to realize this profound truth that I now embrace.

Once we are determined to follow Messiah, only the enemy will bring up our past. Now he gets help from various ones along the way, but a nasty reminder of the past, when we've been forgiven, is nothing more than the enemy trying to get us to fall under a spirit of condemnation. It's getting easier to recognize too, even in subtleness the intensity becomes intimidating, the analysis becomes accusatory, and the communication takes a downward spiral to confusion. In all of that, it became very clear that we were simply not on the same page, even if we were using the same words!

As I said, it took a day or two, but I now realize a new thankfulness that speaks of the grace of My Redeemer. When reminded of the past . . . I'm so thankful I'm not there any more. I'm thankful for the change YHWH has brought in me.

Therefore if any man be in Messiah, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.