Cautiously Grateful
Whether it’s the prevalence of the topic each November, the awareness of the blessings in life, or constantly hearing “A grateful heart will never drink,” the recovery community puts a strong focus on gratitude. For those committed More Than a Speed Bump blog readers, yes I do realize that with “Cautiously Grateful”, two of the last three posts have concerned gratitude…But bear with me as the repetition highlights an area where I need more work. Recovery literature speaks of a real barrier to addiction-free life as being the inability of complete commitment to “this simple program,” typically due to the individual’s lack of capacity to be “honest with themselves.” And while I hesitate to disagree with a the most effective piece of recovery literature ever composed, sometimes I feel like “honest with themselves” could alternatively read, “feel true gratitude.”
Before I go on to analyze my own struggle with Gratitude (first introduced in one of MTSB’s earliest posts “So Many ‘G’ Words”) let us settle on a definition for the word. Our friends at Merriam Webster define gratitude as follows: The state of being grateful: Thankfulness. I like this definition for its’ simple, straightforward description of a such a powerful word, but am left looking for more. What would having healthy gratitude mean for the way I’d live my life and what the heck do I mean by “Cautiously Grateful?”
For all the shortcomings (not meant to be a height joke) and struggles I seem to point out, one of the disciplines that I incorporate into my daily life is a little quiet time and spiritual reading each morning. My dear friend Barry gave me a copy of Sarah Young’s “Jesus Calling,” a daily reader with a passage for November 12th that reads: “My kingdom is not about earning and deserving; it’s about believing and receiving…When you receive My abundant blessings with a grateful heart, I rejoice.” The fact that each year this particular reading moves me so much and feels specially written for me; coupled with the fact that I anticipate, not quite have them memorized, the words is telling.
I’m quick to jump on the self-hatred wagon, pontificating that I don’t deserve the blessings in my life or even the progress in recovery I’ve made so the reminder that “it’s not about earning and deserving” hits home. After all, who am I to decide that I’m the high judge of outcomes, critical of circumstances beyond my control. Talk about an ego-maniac! Perhaps as frustrating as this revelation is that it seems insane to resist the positive feeling of gratitude when as the passage later explains:
“When a child of Mine balks at accepting My gifts, I am deeply grieved. When you receive My abundant blessings with a grateful heart, I rejoice. My pleasure in giving and your pleasure in receiving flow together in joyous harmony.”
Whether it’s just my nature or a self-preservation tendency, caution and resistance to gratitude is maladaptive and can even lead to self-sabotaging behavior. Either way, November 12th’s reading serves as a good reminder that it’s not my job to assess my worthiness nor is receiving blessings about deserving. In fact, the best way to live gratefully is to enjoy life’s God given gifts!