For many across the United States the winter of 2011 has been filled with surprises. Falling temperatures, snow, and ice have pummeled nearly every part of the country. Here in Dallas the weather plunged from highs in the seventies to lows in the teens with ice and then snow.
We complained about the uncharacteristically warm temperatures. Then after days on end of ice and snow, others groused, “It’s beautiful, but enough.”
When I was tempted to join the chorus, I thought, “Take your gift and say thanks.”
We complain far too much. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with desires and longing, ambition or progress. But some elements of life just are what they are and almost nothing that needs to be changed yields to change over night.
The secret of life deeply and joyfully lived is just one that not only lives in the moment (as I so often hear people say). The secret of life lived joyfully is life lived in the present with gratitude.
Take your gift and say thanks.
You will live with greater joy. You will notice things for which to give thanks. And change will not leave you struggling in quite the same way.
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