Thankful

It's 9:45am on a Thursday and I just woke up.  For the first time in weeks I got out of bed wrapped in peace  and motivated by joy.   You see, today marks the start of statewide teacher conferences for all educators in Minnesota.  As a new teacher with limited resources, I debated for a long time about whether or not I should go.  After taking a hard look at the amount of stress and anxiety I have been carrying with me throughout the start of my career, I made the decision that even though I was given time off for the conference, using this time to attend the conference would do more harm than good.   So here I sit, on my bedroom floor, in my pajamas, able to finally lay my burdens down.  

Even though my days have been threaded with angst, they have been blanketed by blessings.  The harshness of the children I work with has primed my heart to be especially sensitive to gentleness.  In that sensitivity, the Lord showed me His gentleness by planting various things to surface with the purpose of calming my heart.    If your life has even been threaded by angst or bracketed by stress then you know what it's like for the most unlikely things to surface and minister to your heart.   These messengers of gentleness are much-needed reminders of the Lord's Sovereignty.  One would never assume that their bed or the length of their commute, their garage or the cost of their laundry would carry such an important message but these simple and sometimes silly reminders are altogether necessary.  There are many things that have tickled my heart with reminders of my King, but for now I invite you to meet two of my messengers:

•  My bed.  If you remember back to when I moved mid-July, my Aunt Joy generously donated her queen bed to me.   At the time I was aware that upgrading my twin for this queen would be much more "adult" but I wasn't aware that it would be incredibly comfortable to sleep on.  I lay in bed every single night and think "I am so thankful for this bed" and every single morning when I am reluctantly pushing away the covers, my thoughts once again echo similar thanks.  Ultimately, I am thankful that the Lord chose to take care of my heart in a way that I would have never deemed necessary on my own.  
• My garage.  When I first signed the lease to the apartment I am now living in, I had the choice to pay extra to rent a remote-opened garage.   Jaded by the amount of time I spent scraping off my car when I was already running late the winter before, I signed up for one without hesitation.   Leave it to the Lord to move mightily, even here, because my garage is directly outside of the stairwell to my apartment.   It takes me less than 2 minutes to get from my bedroom to the inside my garage each morning.  The consistency of this time frame, the closeness of my vehicle to my living quarters and my ever present clear windshield causes me to be thankful everyday.   I no longer have to remember where I parked or that I need to wake up early to thaw any pesky Minnesota moister off my windows.  I never expected that this garage would bless me directly each and everyday, but the Lord clearly cares about every insignificant detail of day.   

My biggest messenger or gentleness today is time off.   I may even get out my Kitchen Aid Mixer to make one of the new recipes in the cookbook I bought for $4.00.