What kneeling on a department store floor taught me about gratitude
As regular readers know, I am a gratitude ignoramus. This concept that flows so easily through the lives of others never fails to leave me confounded; I stand around scratching my head and analyzing what it means to count your blessings, while other people are actually counting their blessings.
Ann Voskamp (whose blog I’m pretty sure the Bible specifically commands us to read) was the first person to get me thinking about this concept. I would read through her 1,000 Gifts posts and feel the Holy Spirit pouring through my computer screen, beckoning me to adopt the same outlook in my own life. One time I was wiping tears out of my eyes after reading her poetic words of gratitude for all the good things in her life, and I resolved that I would do the same — starting now. I had to go to the grocery store, which seemed like the perfect place to start naming the good things that surround me.
Alas, it only took about three minutes for the whole thing to go off the rails. I arrived at the grocery store entrance, and paused in front of the door to think:
Lord, I am thankful for these automatic sliding doors, which make it so easy to enter this place of abundance! So, I guess you could say I am thankful for the machine that actually slides the door open. And that little laser eye thing that senses movement, which I think is a separate mechanism. So, really, I am thankful for all the engineers of the world, who create such devices. And the manufacturing facilities. Which is not to say that I’m not also grateful to the people who make the glass that not only forms the door but allows us to see into the store! And the people who designed the metal frame that holds it, the miners who mined the materials…
You think I’m kidding.
The people behind me didn’t seem to be feeling particularly thankful as I blocked the entrance with my gratitude paralysis, so I moved inside the store, assuring God that I was thankful for the sign on the door displaying the hours and the paint used to make it, even though I had not specifically mentioned them. Seeing as how I didn’t have a week to complete this store trip, I decided to stop analyzing my physical surroundings and just make a list of things that I had felt particularly grateful for lately. The first few items were:
- Liquor store gift cards
- Earl Campbell sausage
- Techno remixes of rap songs
I was about to add bacon and boxed wine to the list, until it occurred to me that that would leave me with a gratitude list in which 80% of the items were related to alcohol or pork products. Clearly, this exercise was not going to yield the results I had hoped for. So I gave up once again, resigning myself to the occasional thought of, “Hey, thanks!” thrown out in God’s general direction.
Meanwhile, I’ve been having this issue with debilitating stabbing pains in my lower abdomen. The good news is that an emergency room trip that included CAT scans, bloodwork and physical exams showed that I’m the very picture of good health. The bad news is that, umm, I keep having these random, debilitating stabbing pains in my lower abdomen. (As if I’m not socially awkward enough, now I occasionally lean over in agony during polite conversation, grunting out, “It’s cool…The doctor says…I’m…fine…!”) I’m going to continue to seek answers from medical professionals and Dr. Google, but, at least for the short term, I’m stuck with it.
Earlier this week I was at the store Kohl’s with one of my daughters. We were having a great time, trying on clothes, even finding some great sales…and then it hit me. We were walking by the purses section when the familiar red-hot stabbing pain started up again. I’d been worried about this happening in public, and now my fear had come true. This was a particularly bad episode, and it caused me to drop to my knees. To keep from attracting attention to myself, I pretended to take a closer look at the purses on the bottom shelf. It was infuriating. I was trying to do something utterly simple like do a little shopping, and now it had been derailed by this stupid issue over which I evidently have no control.
My daughter knelt down next to me and whispered, “Are you okay?”
I said I was. And when I looked over at her, I thought, Well, at least she’s here with me.
And for whatever reason, that simple thought changed everything. It triggered a cascade of grace, and suddenly, my entire perspective shifted.
…This song they’re playing as background music is actually one of my favorites, was the next thought. And then: How perfect that I happened to be by the purses, so I’d have a good excuse for being on the floor. What a blessing that my mom was able to keep the baby; that it’s me in discomfort instead of my daughter; and that these pains usually don’t last for more than 30 seconds anyway.
Another surge of pain hit, and I made a grunting noise as I dropped the purse I’d been holding. I couldn’t help but smile as it occurred to me that it looked to people passing by like I was having an angrily primal reaction to handbags without exterior pockets. This prompted another round of thoughts of thanksgiving: Thank God for little girls who love to shop with their mommies. For the ER technology that ruled out worries of serious issues. For purses, which help me in my vocation. For living in a land of such abundance that stores like Kohl’s exist. For the fact that I’m even alive to feel this pain at all! I started laughing in between winces, which prompted my daughter to giggle right alongside me.
In my normal mode of thinking, I would not have been able to see past the pain. I would have had a laser focus on my desire to shop without having to deal with this, and would have channeled all my thoughts to that end. But being forced into a moment of surrender prompted me to stop asking “What do I want?”, and looking into my four-year-old daughter’s eyes prompted me to ask instead, “What do I have?” In my previous attempts at gratitude, I wasn’t wrong for being thankful for Earl Campbell sausage and automatic doors at the grocery store — but that was more a generic list of good elements of the created world, rather than a joyful examination of the blessings God puts in my path to draw me closer to himself right here, right now.
There on the floor at Kohl’s, giggling behind a stand of purses with my daughter, I learned that gratitude is an acknowledgment of a relationship more than it is a dry list of goods. It’s a thank-you note for the stepping stones that God places in our paths to show us the way to heaven; a willful act of seeing the hand of God at work in our lives, even when our circumstances aren’t ideal.
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(And, while we’re talking about Ann Voskamp, grab a box of Kleenex and go read about what she’s doing in Ecuador, and prayerfully consider if you feel led to help her in this mission.)
Bare Minimum Mode
While we’re on the subject of being overwhelmed, I thought I’d re-post something I mentioned in passing in a Quick Takes post a few years ago.
When our fourth baby was about four months old, I decided to switch into what my husband and I call “Bare Minimum Mode.” This is a temporary paring down of our lifestyle where we cut out all non-essential activities so that we can stay sane. We try not to stay in this mode more than six months at a time, since it’s a mode of surviving more than thriving, but it sure is a lifesaver during those periods. I haven’t needed it as much this time around since my oldest kids are old enough to help, but it’s comforting to know that I can always pull the lever and declare us to be in Bare Minimum Mode if I need to!
Since I often see people searching the site to find that old Quick Takes post where I mentioned it, here is a recap of what Bare Minimum Mode looks like for me:
- We stretch our budget to get more babysitting help than we could normally afford. Sometimes we’ve taken a pre-determined amount of money out of savings as our “survival babysitting fund.”
- I cook only about six different dinners. Each of these meals has the following characteristics: it’s easy, healthy, can be made ahead of time, and can be made from memory.
- I don’t worry about how much TV the kids watch.
- I don’t socialize more than twice a month.
- All home improvement projects like scrapbooking, closet cleanouts, garage organization, etc. are put on hold.
- I turn down all requests for freelance work.
- I make the kids’ nap time sacred space on the calendar: nothing short of a true emergency interferes with them (and me!) getting that down time.
These sorts of things used to happen anyway during times that I was overwhelmed, so I found it helpful to articulate those activities that were just too much for me right now, cut them out, and embrace that as a proactive strategy, rather than walking around feeling stressed about what wasn’t getting done.
Also, I think it’s important to note that this isn’t one-size-fits all advice; Bare Minimum Mode is going to vary by temperament. For example, I’m an introvert who finds cooking difficult but loves to read, so I cut out as much socializing and cooking as possible, but kept time in my schedule for reading; whereas an extrovert chef who is not a bookworm might cut out reading time to give her more calendar space for socializing and cooking.
Have you ever done Bare Minimum Mode in your own life? If so, what did it look like for you? (Give us an idea of your temperament so that others with similar personalities can get ideas!)
What a spiritual director and an MBA taught me about being overwhelmed
I have a personality type that leads me to feel overwhelmed a lot. I’m ambitious but lazy; I have a latent perfectionist streak that comes out at unexpected times; I’m an Olympian procrastinator; and I’m so non-confrontational that I often find myself saying “Yes, I’d love to help with that” when what I should be saying is, “I CANNOT EVEN FIND TIME TO BRUSH MY HAIR RIGHT NOW, LET ALONE SIGN UP FOR ONE MORE FREAKING THING.”
Because God looks out for people like me, I’ve had some very wise counsel in this department over the years. For one thing, my husband is an MBA with a gift for managing difficult situations. Earlier in his career he wanted to be a turnaround CEO (an executive that takes failing companies and makes them profitable), so he gained a lot of experience wading into hot messes and getting things under control. Then there was my great spiritual director, who never failed to help me shift my view of any situation to see it through the eyes of Christ. Thanks to the two of them, I can usually dig myself out of overwhelming situations before I reach the meltdown zone.
I’ve gained a great perspective on how to parse through complicated situations, the details of which I once wrote up here. But I realized recently (when I found myself in over my head yet again) that the most important addition to my life toolkit is what I think of as the Burnout Emergency Gas Mask. If you were in a room that was filling with toxic gas, the first thing you’d do is put on a gas mask. You’d do it immediately, without any further analysis, to preserve your health and give you some breathing room (literally) so that you could calmly evaluate the situation and make prudent decisions about what to do next. Through my husband and my spiritual director, I’ve learned a set of steps to take when I begin feeling overwhelmed that function the same way: If I do them immediately, without any further analysis, the process gives me the breathing room to collect my thoughts so that I can make prudent decisions about how to remedy the situation.
Since we’re approaching prime burnout season with the Fall in full swing and the holidays just around the corner, I thought I’d share what I’ve learned:
The 4-Step Burnout Gas Mask
1. Get your physical environment in order
I find it to be critical to do this step first. I used to think that a messy environment didn’t bother me at all, but I’ve come to believe that living in chaos is objectively bad for the spiritual life. When I’m feeling overwhelmed, it goes a long way toward bringing me peace simply to get my house in order. I don’t mean achieving Martha Stewart levels of perfection, but just clearing out obvious piles of clutter and wiping off messy surfaces to get things looking basically orderly. (And yes, I turn to Fly Lady when I need inspiration in this department.) In situations where the whole house seems to be out of control and it makes me even more stressed to imagine dealing with all of this, I focus only on the kitchen and the bedroom: Waking up to a tidy room and making breakfast in a clean kitchen invariably gets the next day off to a much better start, no matter what else is going wrong.
2. Get some sleep
One of my husband’s biggest mantras is, “Don’t think about your problems when you’re tired.” I need to have this tattooed on my hand so I never forget it. As I’ve said before, I’ve been known to reason my way into believing that the entire universe is falling apart at the seams when I’m tired, only to find that I have a completely different perspective after a good night of sleep. Especially if you haven’t been getting good sleep for a long period of time, pull every single string available to you to make this happen. Even one solid night of catchup sleep can give you an explosion of energy.
3. Pray — preferably outside of the house
We should, of course, pray without ceasing. I know that when I’m overwhelmed, I toss up all sorts of scatter-brained prayers asking God for assistance (and, okay, making sure that he is aware of JUST HOW TERRIBLE everything is that I’m dealing with). However, in order to truly “put on the mind of Christ,” I need to shut the door on everything else that’s going on in my life, and give the Lord my full attention. In particular, I find it to be critical that I actually follow the A.C.T.S. model of prayer (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, then Supplication); otherwise I tend to blather on and on about what I want God to help me with as if he’s my personal assistant, rather than listening for what he may be trying to tell me.
Also, it doesn’t work well if I try to do this at home. When I feel like I’m surrounded by chaos, it’s super helpful to pray outside of the house at least once, either in our church or at the Adoration chapel. If I try to do one of these “gas mask” prayer sessions at home, my prayers tend to go something like, “Lord, I praise you for your...laundry! Who knocked over that basket of laundry that I just spent an hour folding?!?!”
4. Talk through it
After I’ve gotten my house (or at least my bedroom and kitchen) in order, gotten a good night’s sleep, and spent some time in focused prayer, the final thing I need to do in order to set a path forward is to talk through everything with my husband or a close friend. I note from much experience that it is important to make this the last step, otherwise I tend to initiate the conversations with proclamations about how horrible everything is, then ramble for a while with an incoherent series of aimless, self-pitying statements. And, like with prayer, it’s also important to carve out time for this conversation so that both of us are calm, and so we’re not interrupted a bunch of times. (In other words: When I catch my husband at work when he’s late for a client meeting and I’m shouting over the sounds of five screaming kids, it tends not to be a very fruitful discussion.) But when we actually do have time to have a positive, focused discussion, it can work wonders for helping me test what I’ve discerned in prayer, think through new possibilities, and come up with a clear plan to bring peace back into my life.
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So those are my four “gas mask” steps that I take as soon as I catch the first whiff of burnout in my life. What are your tips for when you’re feeling overwhelmed?
How I learned to love housework
I am not a naturally tidy person. To put it bluntly: I’m kind of a slob. It’s hard to say whether this is due more to my laziness or to my lack of attention to detail, but I’m the type of person who can step over piles of dirty laundry without noticing them, who forgets to sweep the kitchen floor until there’s an audible crunch when I walk across it.
So you can imagine that when I first left the career world to become a housewife after my son was born, things didn’t go smoothly. I found keeping house frustrating, since the ratio of effort to payoff just wasn’t there for me. A spotless kitchen wasn’t that different to me than a kitchen with dishes stacked next to the sink and a mystery sticky substance coating the floor in front of the fridge, so the work of getting it clean seemed like a waste of time. Sometimes my husband would come home from work and gently mention that he might clean up a bit, and I’d be baffled. What was there to clean? The house seemed fine to me. Then I’d watch him pick up a dirty sock off the living room floor, vacuum some crushed Cheerios from the rug, remove some empty sippy cups and crumb-covered plates from the side table. With each item I’d say, “Oh, that? That bothers you?”
I had settled into a sort of routine of shuffling around the house and doing the bare minimum, occasionally stopping to sigh and ask myself what other arbitrary things might need to be done. I didn’t resent the work, but I did think it was mostly pointless, and I never did it because I wanted to; I’d just put myself in the mindset of imagining what a neat freak would do, and mimic that.
And then I found God, and everything changed.
One of the most surprising results of my conversion has been that I’ve developed a love of housework. I’ve seen a complete reversal in my old attitudes about the tasks involved with keeping the house in order. This doesn’t mean that my house is super clean all the time — I still have that lack of attention to detail and the whole five kids under seven thing that means that my house is messy a lot of the time, but the difference is that I now value a clean house, and I almost always enjoy doing what it takes to get it that way.
How did God change that? Part of it is probably due to the Christian emphasis on service and selflessness, that I’ve come to understand that the path to joy is a path that involves work and personal sacrifice. Some of it might be that it’s easier to manage the craziness of having a bunch of little kids when things are clean. But the biggest thing that changed for me was when I came to understand that order is of God, and that the fight against chaos is a fight for good.
When I was first reading books about theology, the idea of God bringing order from chaos deeply resonated with me. I’d always had a love of astronomy and physics, and when I thought of clouds of scattered dust coalescing into planets, smatterings of planets organizing themselves around a sun in a dance carefully orchestrated by the laws of gravity, I could see the hand of a great Organizer at work. I delved into books that talked about how so much of good and evil falls along the lines of order and chaos: life brings order out of random elements, death returns it to chaos. Peaceful societies are orderly, war is chaotic. What separates beautiful music from annoying noises is the harmonious organization of the notes. And so on. When you take a look at the big picture of the battle of good and evil, you see that so much of what the devil does simply involves destroying order.
At first all of these thoughts were confined to my head and the pages of books, but then I began to see these themes in my daily life. One day I was standing at the sink, rinsing soggy cereal out of bowls and placing them in the dishwasher, and it hit me: I was bringing order out of chaos. Suddenly, the value of this mundane task was no longer subjective. This wasn’t pointless drudgery; it was God’s work! It was a small-scale version of what God did when he created the planets, the galaxies, and life itself. I shut the dishwasher door, wiped down the counters, rinsed the sink clean, and swept the floor. When I stood back to behold the order I had brought to this place, I knew — could feel – that I had won a little battle against evil.
I’m still lazy and will never be one of those women who just can’t sit down because she’s always cleaning something, but I can honeslty say that once I understood the spirituality of housework, I have mostly enjoyed it. The more I’ve meditated on my work as a cooperation with God in the timeless fight against the forces of chaos, the more it has become satisfying to me on a deep level. In fact, some of the best moments in my spiritual life in the past couple of years have been when I was standing in my house after a good cleaning session, looking around at the triumph over the disarray that once reigned, knowing that I just won a victory for God.