A cool day in July? Who’d a thunk it?
It wasn’t exactly an arctic blast, but on July 16th and 17th, there was “a good feel to the air” just as Christy, the TV weather lady, had predicted. Not bad for mid-summer in South Carolina.
I was sitting outside on the morning after the cold front muscled its way through our area, and I was thanking God for this gift from Him.
I know there is science behind weather systems, but I also believe there’s a Creator behind the science, and I was grateful to Him.
Christy (the weather lady) said cold fronts almost never make it this far south in the middle of summer. But this one did.
It filled me with the same wonder I experienced as a freshman at Auburn when temperatures sometimes climbed above 60 degrees in the middle of winter. My tennis teammates, all Southerners, would roll their eyes and shake their heads at this Indiana transplant every time I launched into my, “Do–you-know-how-amazing-this-is?” speech. I was the only member of the team from “up Nawth,” so no one else appreciated warm winter days the way I did.
My childhood left me expecting summers to be too hot and winters to be too cold, so when it’s not—when it’s surprisingly delightful outside—I get a little excited.
It’s like getting flowers for no particular reason. Or, I guess it would be, were that ever to happen to me. (That’s right, dear hubby, I’m talkin’ to you. )
It’s all about our expectations, isn’t it?
“It’s another perfect day out there,” my husband often comments after checking the weather in Mountain View, California, where one of our sons and his family live.
“But they don’t appreciate it like we do,” I say. “They expect it.”
It makes me consider the possibility that if I rearranged all my expectations, and maybe even eliminated most of them, every day of my life might be packed with wondrous, thankful moments.
Wouldn’t that be a great way to live?
On one of those recent cool-ish July mornings, I sat down at my computer and noticed I had a few Facebook messages to attend to. As often happens, I got derailed on my way to those messages and noticed a short video clip featuring a 32-year-old Australian man who was born without any arms or legs.
His name is Nick Vujicic and he now travels the world as a preacher and motivational speaker. The video leaves no doubt that Vujicic’s strong faith in Jesus Christ is the reason his disability has made him better, not bitter.
“I have the choice to be angry at God for what I don’t have, or be thankful for what I do have,” he says.
A living, breathing example of someone who rearranged his expectations and opened up floodgates of peace, purpose and joy.
If your thankful tank needs filling, go to youtube.com or Google and do a search for Nick Vujicic. I found several of his quotes worth pondering, including this one: “I never met a bitter person who was thankful. Or a thankful person who was bitter.”
Growing old may not be optional, but growing bitter certainly is.
And on that July morning, the Lord used a cold front and a happy man—with many reasons to be unhappy—to remind me that one of the most effective ways to prevent the soul cancer of bitterness is to simply be thankful … and, even more importantly, to know Who to thank.
“Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever… He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and burst their bonds apart.” – Psalm 107:1, 14