When I realize that it is not God who is in my debt but I who am in His great debt, then doesn’t all become gift?

Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts

I’ve been thinking for awhile about Lent: what it means, how I can live in its purpose, what I should give up.  And almost immediately I was challenged, by that voice in my heart, to rethink it this year.  Rather than “choosing the scene of my own martyrdom” as Oswald Chambers would say, what if I took something on, embraced something?  I hear every year about the sacrifices of chocolate and Coke and can only think, “This is what Jesus’ death inspires?”–this second stab at a New Year’s resolution, this self-ordained mash-up of religious ritual with personal improvement?  What’s the ratio of humble austerity to Facebook status update material in these choices?

So I decided to devote each day to praying for someone specific.  That’s the first idea that popped into my mind in accordance with the add-on theme.  And I felt it affirmed when the subject came up in conversation and I responded to the “What are you giving up?” inquiry with my newfound answer.  Uncomfortably, I might add, because I didn’t know this person well and my glass-half-empty mentality assumed laughter would be the response.  Instead, it was “You can pray for me.”  And so the conversation lengthened and deepened.

Then I came home yesterday to a faulty internet connection, and I woke up this morning to a broken ice maker.  As the frozen shards sprayed across the hardwood, I yelled for The Husband’s help.  After assessing the situation and politely requesting that I work on the difference between “the ice maker is broken” and “an intruder is attacking me” yells, he–naturally–fixed the problem. That’s what he does.  What do I do?  Well…this time, unlike yesterday with the internet, I didn’t cry!  And I only cussed twice!  And this is a victory for me!

So I went upstairs and gazed at the unmade bed awaiting my attention.  Having recently entered the gratitude industry, I wondered how to be thankful for this task.  Maybe I’ll just smile while I do it, I seriously thought, then imagined myself with a fake grin and realized that turds don’t polish and Band-Aids don’t heal bullet wounds.  And then, in my waiting for the opportunity to practice thankfulness, it arrived.  I looked at the neatly folded sheet and cover on my side of the bed–Little Miss By-the-Book.  And then at the twisted-in-a-pile side of TH’s.  I laughed as I noticed for the first time how cute it is that my husband still sleeps like a little boy.  And love, rather than resentment, rose up in me and I began to get a glimmer of how gratitude can save us.

Then I drove to work.  Along with EVERY SCHOOL BUS IN A TWENTY-MILE RADIUS.  The yellow lights flashing, the stop sign slowly and creakily flapping out, the traffic halting.  And me, I’m thinking how this is going to make me late since there no way in hell I’m not stopping at Dunkin for my #5 and a coffee.  And I thought of all the other mandated delays that occur in my life: broken technology.  Traffic.  And the time eight years ago, when I missed the Atlanta exit on I-20 from Birmingham and ended up doubling my distance…and seeing Chattanooga for the first time.  The thought had entered my raging mind then: does God do this on purpose?  But with an addendum born not of Eve’s “he’s withholding” suspicion: does he want to get me alone?  Does he…want to spend time with me?  The thought recurred today, and I am not kidding when I tell you that I literally responded in my head, “Hang on, Jesus, just let me make this left-hand turn.”

I wait to give thanks.  I wait to give thanks. Until the ice maker is fixed, the traffic is moving, the destination is reached.  I put my heart and all but the tersest of prayers on hold until the situation has become more manageable.

I wait to give thanks until I see something I deem worth giving thanks for.

And, as previously established here and throughout life, my vision–my ability to deduce good and bad from what I see–is beyond handicapped.  More broken than an ice maker, more blocked than traffic.

What am I waiting for?  If all is grace, then what is there to do but always thank?

When will I believe it?  And how different will life look when I do?

And so for Lent, I give him what, like everything else, is already his: my time.  Doled out in sincere prayers of thanks, believing what I don’t always feel–that all is grace, all is good, because HE says so, and He knows.  So did Isaiah, the prophet and poet who wrote that my righteous acts–my 40-day abandonment of processed sugar that really only serves as a self-reliant prop–are filthy rags.  But my prayers?  They are “golden bowls full of incense” (Rev. 5:8).  In the kingdom of heaven, where there is nothing but perfect beauty, my prayers stand out, are inhaled as sweetness.  And so it can be with me, as I look to my life and breathe deep.