I’ve been reading a meditation book for the past few years that several wise women in my life recommended. It’s called “Simple Abundance,” by Sarah Ban Breathnach, and it’s meant to help women who tend to be over-busy with vocation, family, relationships, personal growth, health, etc. pause, reflect, and be their true, authentic selves. One of the author’s recurring points is that we already have all that we need – instead of comparing, feeling lack or envy, or seeing how much more we feel we should attain, it is a choice to reframe our lives with the mentality of abundance and then to simply live into our own calling out of that abundance. Ban Breathnach maintains that one of the first steps toward feeling abundance and recognizing that we already have enough in our lives is to start each day with gratitude.
Each Thanksgiving I am reminded of this reality even more deeply when I take time to pause and acknowledge all the people, events, places, and choices that enrich my life. I don’t go through this journey on my own – it is with others, with God’s guidance, and with so much more then I even need! My prayer for this new year, as advent starts off a new Christian church year, is to remember this choice to turn to thankfulness through the ups and downs of the year – whether it brings anxiety, questions, fear, deadlines, stress, pain, loneliness, frustration, feelings of lack, grief, or insecurity. Abundant life – the promise of Christ – the reality we can live into when we are thankful. Amen.
In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer