Process Part II - Living Grateful

(Process Part 1)

Process is something to be praised. The more I marinate on those words, the more I am convinced of what process actually is. It is less about the passage of time and more about how we use that passage of time. It is less about deadlines, expectations, days, and weeks and more about our choices.

Everything is fast moving. Days dissolve into weeks and time becomes sand in an hourglass. It can be a fast moving train, where are you headed? For someone like me who builds expectations on myself, process is expected to be as quick as time. Life is moving fast, so adjustment and transition should too. Things are happening quickly and I'm hitting the ground running, so I should adapt to change at that same pace. And it should be smooth. Right? Well, no.

Adjustment is chaotic. Transition is tough.

It's beautiful and miraculous.

You can't speed up the process.

But what you can do is choose.

There are a lot of little choices to make that culminate into bigger ones, into bigger ones, until I find I am tackling the choices that at first seemed overwhelming. Trust, openness, vulnerability are all big, abstract concepts that are frightening to fight. But what if trust was broken down into little choices along the way? What if I made God the center of those choices? WHAT IF I CHOSE TO BE GRATEFUL?

Grateful for where I am. Grateful for my corner. Grateful for opportunities. Grateful for grace. Looking at my life through the lens of gratitude and being amazed by what I see. Gratitude is the lifeblood of humility and humility is the lifeblood of gratitude. I cannot fathom the goodness God has bestowed on me. The winding, hilly, up and down, roller coaster journey He has guided me on are full of things I hold as value. I am gratefully overcome.

I hold my hands up and laugh in joy at the chaos. I delight in my story because it is a powerful tool of the Gospel.

There is a new Florence and the Machine song called 'Shake it Out' and I love it because it's dramatic and bold, just like she always delivers. It's a song about carrying things behind us, feeling weighed down, the dark before the dawn, but feeling empowered in choosing to shake that devil off. My favorite line says I am done with my graceless heart, So tonight I'm gonna cut it out and then restart.

Ah I love that.

Take out that gracelessness! Restart with gratitude! Choose! Remember! God is in the process and process is to be praised. And it becomes a divinely beautiful chaos.

I welcome process because I choose to throw away time. I remember that God is good, He is faithful, He sent His Son, and He sees us through.