about the given life, and not the planned

You may not be as air-headed as I am, but you've probably experienced this type of morning: 

You’re flying out the door, you grab your bag and your coffee, you do a quick scan of the house and think you’ve packed up all you need for the day, jump in the car, and realize that you left your wallet on the table.  And then you go grab that and ten minutes down the road you remember the turkey sandwich sitting on the shelf of your fridge that you’d made for lunch.  

All of that to say – this has been my experience with gratitude this year. 

I’ve written to you about it a thousand times.  I’ve thought about it in a thousand different ways.  It is my anthem that plays on the radio over and over again and just won’t quiet.  Sometimes I think I’ve packed away every inch of it in my bag, and then in a split second I realize that there is more and more of it I’m forgetting and haven’t captured yet.   

So, if you’ll humor me, today we’re walking back inside and we’re going to grab more of this gratitude stuff we’ve left behind.   

One of the most beautifully written stories I’ve ever read is “Hannah Coulter” by Wendell Berry.  There are so many profound lines in it, and often I revisit them or they come to me randomly and I am entranced by how eloquent and truthful they are.  

As I was thinking of gratitude today, this part came to me: 

“The chance you had is the life you've got. You can make complaints about what people, including you, make of their lives after they have got them, and about what people make of other people's lives, ...but you mustn't wish for another life. You mustn't want to be somebody else. What you must do is this:
Rejoice evermore.
Pray without ceasing.
In everything give thanks.
I am not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions.”

I read this over a thousand times in a coffee shop today and it came to me, the thing that I'd been forgetting on the kitchen table when it comes to gratitude -- to be grateful not only for what is given to me, but for my specific life. 

I've gotten into a good habit of being thankful for the small gifts that enter my day - for sunrises, for good conversations, for surprise pizza parties at work.  But what I don't do too well is give thanks that I am Emily Thompson. 

I am a daughter.  I am a sister.  I am a coworker. I am a friend. 

I am a lover of words, a loather of cabbage, a loud laugher, a frequent faller-down of stairs.  

I am specifically me in specific places to specific people, and all of that is total gift. 

I think what Hannah is talking about is living a life of gratitude that reflects our purpose in the world.  It is devastatingly easy to compare your life to others, or to wish you were made differently or dealt a different hand.  But when we compare and complain, we forget the intentionality behind who we are and where we are, and what we will do and who we will become. 

Berry once closed one of his poems with the line "we live the given life, and not the planned."  I find this to be such a beautiful sentiment and truth.  

There is so much thanks to be given simply for the fact that we are not haphazard.  

Hallelujah for that.