Gratitude Friday...

Not sure I've mentioned it before (as Chris would say, "I've slept since then") but we have joined a new small group.  I have so enjoyed getting to know them.  They're all an active group so we've met up at local events with our kids, gone to each other's kids' birthday parties, had a girls' night out and eaten lots of food.

Oh, so much food.

This past Sunday night, we had some Italian food and shared our own Jesus stories.  You know after a weekend of baptisms, it felt right for us to share ours.

We are blessed to be in a group with lots of older preschool parents.  I know.  That doesn't seem like a thing but it is a WHOLE THING.  And last Sunday, it just happened to be that all four couples there were just that. 

Old and tired and dealing with toddlers.

I point that out because we all had relatively lengthy Jesus stories.  We've got 40 years or so of life to talk through.  So our stories were long and detailed and full of such miracles.

The last person to share got really REAL with us about some of her struggles.  Things we all have felt.  Doubt and fear and anxiety.  All things from the enemy.  

We surrounded her and prayed over her.  Prayers of strength and revelation and identity and scripture and gratitude and love and healing.

It was wonderful.  

That whole "two or three" thing is for real.  God showed up.  

Back at our house, Chris and I were talking about the prayers.  As we're getting to know each person in the group, we are starting to see their spiritual passions.  

One is passionate about identity.  He prayed revelation about our friend's identity as a beloved daughter of Christ.  No longer an orphan but a child of God's.  A child God sees as righteous and forgiven and treasured.

One is passionate about restoration.  She prayed for healing.  For taken the broken pieces of grief and knitting her heart back together completely free.  No longer bound by fear and doubt but restored through love and grace.

One is passionate about scripture.  He prayed God's word over her.  Declarations of God's promises to us about being given a spirit of power and not of fear.  The truth of being known be our Father completely and fully and being loved radically and relentlessly.

I am passionate about gratitude.  My prayers are always thankful for the courage to share a burden.  Thankful for the healing I know He will do.  Thankful for the strength and confidence that will be received.  Thankful for the group of people He so wonderfully ordained to be together.  Thankful for who He is and who we are in Christ.

As Chris and I were discussing all this, the revelation of our own spiritual passions hit me so hard.  So powerfully.  So easily, like I should have caught on to that earlier.

We all have natural tendencies.  

My friend, Jessica, and I have been reading, "Quiet" together.  Slowly, because it's dense and we have little people who could care less about our ability to focus on a subject matter when there are monkey bars to help them crawl across.

We are both introverts so there are some nice AH-HA moments for us about ourselves in those pages. I'm also reading to become a better mother to sweet Aubrey Kate.  I feel like I am becoming such a student of her.  Just of who she is and how God created her.  I want to raise her up in the way SHE should go.  Not in the way culture says or even what I say.  But in the way God says.  Studying her natural tendencies and praying through how I can guide her and love her and develop her confidence in Her Creator and how He created her.

So as we're talking about the prayers and the individuals praying them, it became so clear.  Where God has offered us the most healing, the most revelation, the most joy, THAT'S our jam.

Gratitude.  That's where it's at for me.  

I mean, I knew that about myself but taking the time to really listen to others and hear their prayers, I could see the same truth for them.

The day begun by getting into the baptismal waters and ended with such a welcomed revelation.

My question for you is, what's your jam?  

What's your passion?

Being a beloved child of the King?  A love of restoration and healing?  An intense understanding of grace, undeserved favor?  A life changed through a heart focused on praise and thanksgiving?

What's your jam?

Become a student of yourself.  Ask the Holy Spirit for guidance.  For new insight.  For a fresh perspective.  

Are you passionate about mercy and forgiveness?  Do you naturally feel moved to pray and find prayer time to be full and plentiful?  Are you able to see with the eyes of Jesus and find love for all?  Are the least of these your tribe?  

God can tell you.  After all, He knit you together.  Listen to His voice.  Not the voices of culture and media and your past.  He whispers in the wind.  Find a quiet place.  Turn the noise of the world off.  And ASK.  

Let Him be Lord.  Tell Him you will follow.  

We can't do everything but by golly, we can do something.  I tell my daughter every creature, every thing, every part of the world around us was created with a purpose.  That purpose is to love God and love others.  How did God create you to do that best?

Revel in that creation and let the Creator pursue you in that passion.

Thank you, Lord.  Thank you for finding me in the back of that closet.  Thank you for asking me lovingly if I was thankful for the life You'd given me.  Thank you for leading me to You through that journey of learning to be grateful.  Thank you for the privilege of showing others You by being grateful in both the valleys and mountain tops of my life.  Thank you for how You created me and for continuing to teach me about You.  I am grateful.