Gratitude makes you breathe easier. It’s as if it were expanding your lung capacity. It’s repairing the shortness of your breath, burdened by worry. Gratitude increases your capacity for everything that comes. Gratitude expands your peace. Gratitude for Him expands.
Someone recently asked me to recall the little good things God has given me over the years. That evening, as I lay in a dark room, I tried to recall all the things I knew without a doubt were Him. At first, it was very difficult. I wandered through the events, but nothing in particular emerged. Then suddenly, detail after detail, they began to come back. The goodness of my God. Piercing. As if Someone had hugged me tightly and reminded me: “I Am. I’ve always been. Remember?
About our meetings in a cave filled with crystal-clear water, when you lay completely submerged, only your head above the surface, and we were together for hours?
About how a friend once called you and said she’d be praying for you all day today and sharing what I had to say to you? And it was a shower of kind words and things about the future?
About how I guided you for years into a vision of your future, which, step by step, revealed Mozambique, your husband, your vocation, and which always began with our Meeting?
About how you flew to Africa for the first time and were terribly afraid? And on top of that, you forgot your toothbrush and were angry that even that small thing was missing. But the flight attendant came asking for a seat change and, as a thank you, brought you a first-class overnight toiletries kit? And there was a toothbrush there.
About how we met in a small mountain house with a horse, on the Slovak side of the Tatra Mountains, when I sat smiling in the grain field, with an ear of wheat between my teeth, and asked you if we were going to Mozambique together? You knew then that I would take care of everything myself.
About how you were alone at summer camp in the mountains and missed your parents so much, and I told them, in my own way, to call you again that day? And then your brother came to visit you.”
With each subsequent reminder, I began to feel quieter inside. I felt noticed and cared for. A sense of purpose, which had been jumping here and there in recent months, stabilized. And sometimes even disappeared.
Not to forget what we’ve already been through together. To know precisely that I’m here because He brought me. Not to let the current dissatisfaction, confusion, and inadequacy scream louder than Him. No, not to erase difficulties and not to impose on them the Christian maturity that must handle everything with a smile. To face each one, perhaps even someone else nearby, who will observe with detachment what seems to be falling apart. But never forget the goodness of God. The only constant in our inconstancy.
And breathe deeper. Because of that goodness. Give yourself a chance to breathe.
What are your gratitudes? Do you remember them today? Or is it difficult to pinpoint even one?
It’s been much harder for me to find those from recent years and months. Apparently, difficulties and discomfort numb us. But I’ve taken up this work of mindfulness because it’s impossible for His goodness to have exhausted itself. Perhaps it manifests itself completely differently now than it used to?
Perhaps like the husband at my side, who, from the moment our sons were born, lulled them to sleep at night and only brought them to me for feedings?
Perhaps like the countless documents in Mozambique that were always on time, even if it was 20 minutes before the check-in deadline?
Maybe like an angel who prevented a specially sent person from casting spells on us? (I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you!)
Maybe like this bread I found in a local bakery, which is a bit like the one I know from Poland?
Maybe like the electricity that often returns after the words, “Lord, please let this electricity return…”?
Maybe like the time to write my husband gives me when he takes the boys on an off-road ride in the bush?
Maybe like these bracelets that I can use to occupy my hands and soul while resting my head?
Maybe like the missionaries from Poland who will be with us in just a few days?
Maybe we need to live more mindfully to hear: “I am. I will always be.”
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