More than just Thanksgiving

Eucharisteo

life. filling. gratitude

 

Eucharisteo is more than just thanksgiving. Its life filling gratitude. The title of this blog is Eucharisteo. I read "A thousand gifts" by: Ann Voskamp not long before starting this blog and I was more than on board with it. I wanted this idea of Eucharisteo to permeate my very being. Now it's one year later and well, the first thank I shal give thanks for is grace, because clearly I'm still learning :)

~*~*~

It was after 1am, and I had been lying in bed sobbing for quite some time. I was safely tucked into my warm bed, in a house with my family, lying next to my phone which my friends were blowing up, and yet I felt so alone. Stranded even. As I began to respond to a friend's text, explaining that I'd be fine because I believe in God's promises, I know he'll provide, it suddenly clicked. Clear as day. Perhaps my dilema is less about all the things I feel I'm lacking right now. Everything that seems to be a mess and spinning out of control. Everyone I've left behind. Everything that was left undone. And to a degree this was true. I have bills, but no job. Ideas and hope for where God's calling me in the future, but no way to get there, the list goes on. But lying there trying to explain how I should be feeling the peace of Christ, to my non-believing friend, it became clear. Perhaps this deep distress of my spirit is less about all of these things, and more about the fact that I still haven't fully learned to be content in all circumstances.

What God has been showing me this week is that I really need to work on this, and that peace and courage in really stressful circumstances comes from Eucharisteo. From giving thanks. A deep sense of joy and thankfulness way down in your heart that says "God, I don't know whats going on here. It feels out of control and messy and frankly, bad. But Lord I am clinging to the truth that I know you are good. You have given me so much and I am thankful. You will continue to guide me to your will and through this, grow me into the woman you've created me to be, and Lord though it may be messy, unacceptable to the world, and wickedly painful, I give thanks, because of that there's no where else I'd rather be."
This is my prayer today, for you and myself, that we would continue on this journey of learning to live in Eucharisteo. That one day, like Paul, we would say "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation..."

~*~*~*~

 

One commentary's remarks on Philippians 4:11

 

Furthermore, Paul says that he had "learned" this. Probably by nature he had a mind as prone to impatience as others, but he had been in circumstances fitted to produce a different state of feeling. He had had ample experience 2 Corinthians 11:26, and, in his life of trials, he had acquired invaluable lessons on the subject. He had had abundant time for reflection, and he had found that there was grace enough in the gospel to enable him to bear trials with resignation. The considerations by which he had been taught this, he does not state; but they were probably such as the following:  that a spirit of impatience does no good, remedies no evil, and supplies no want; that God could provide for him in a way which he could not foresee, and that the Saviour was able abundantly to sustain him"