Yesterday when Spring paid us a short visit I had the chance to take my favorite little person for a wagon ride in the neighborhood. My goal was to get some cardio in because I needed to get some step in according to my Apple Watch. He settled in, with the box of crayons that were necessary for the ride, and we took off.

This Spring Alex has discovered daffodils, or Yaffodils as he calls them. So he saw this ride as a chance to spot Yaffodills. My neighborhood has some great gardeners and he was in for a treat. We were off to a good start and he started shouting, “Yaffodils, Grammy, Yaffodils.”

I stopped and turned back to him and said, “Where are they?” He pointed and said will glee, “ Yaffodils are yellow. They are happy.” So we began again and I heard regular Yaffodils updates of, “Yaffodils, Grammy, Yaffodils.” .

I have to say the very best way to exericse on a beautiful spring day in Kansas to pull a wagon with an almost three year old who shouts out the Yaffodil report.

I have a friend who has kept a gratitude journal for over a decade. She faithfully writes five things she is grateful for every day. She discovered this ritual after her daughter was diagnosed with cancer. The enormity of this response to such a personal family crisis is remarkable to me. When I think about how I might respond to the news that my child has cancer, I will openly admit that a gratitude journal would not be my first or last response.

When terrible things have happened in my life, I have responded with anger, sadness, tears, numbing behaviors, and becoming hyper-focused on trivial matters. I asked my friend about how she started her gratitude journal practice. Her response, as paraphrased by me, was this: “We had so little control over anything happening to us amid treatment, setbacks, and hospitalizations that writing a gratitude journal was a way to find something to hang on to during this impossible situation.”

Finding a center of calmness during a personal storm is a great way to find some meaning and purpose in times of great stress. The pandemic times we are living through have certainly made me readjust my definition of success and living a meaningful life. As a pastor, I have learned that the essential part of the church’s work is creating community and support. I found that the part of the church our folks missed the most was fellowship, hugs, and the camaraderie of our friendships. Last week at our Ash Wednesday service, we shared a common loaf and cup for the first time in two years. (FYI, we used a lot of hand sanitizer, and everyone wore a mask.) I had a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes as I could call each person by name and offer the bread of life to the people of the church I serve. I needed the connection of familiarity and community more than I realized.

I have not started a gratitude journal. I think about it, but then I forget about it, so I do not think I would be very faithful to completing this ritual. I have become much more aware of the need to practice gratitude. So I try to look people in the eye and share a word of encouragement or a compliment as I live my daily life. How do you find your way through turbulent times? Share. Let’s help each other along the way.

Yesterday’s blog had some unintended consequences that I’m going to post about for all my supportive friends and family. My emphasis in writing was to lift up the bit of self-discovery I made about myself. My lovely followers read that I had been treated unkindly by someone, and they were ready to protect me and tell me all the reasons that a person with a complaint was wrong. Thank you, lovely friends, family, and followers. I love you too.

Complaints and criticisms are part of the job when one serves in the helping professions. For many years in my work, I took those criticisms way too personally and to heart, believing what someone might say to me as the truth about me or my work. Age, or wisdom, is slowly teaching me that complaints are rarely about me or my performance and say much more about the heart and conditions of the soul of the one making the complaint. Sometimes people have a real gripe that needs attention or a complaint that needs consideration. My age is finally helpful for me to separate out these issues.

So for the record, all is well in my world. God is good, and I am still learning to write this blogging thing in a way that points to what I am trying to say. This is my Lenten Discipline this year. Writing transparently to share thoughts on faith, life, and finding joy in uncertain seasons. Thanks for walking with me today.

“Embrace uncertainty. Some of the most beautiful chapters in our lives won’t have a title until much later.” — Bob Goff