It is a lengthy quote, but it encouraged (and challenged) me so much that I just had to share it. I want to say this one day and mean it with all my heart. I hope Nancy’s words encourage you today, too.

“The choice before you and me today is: Do we only give glory to God for the part of our life that’s going the way we want?  Or do we worship Him, trust Him, and give Him thanks, just because He is God — regardless of the dark, painful, incomprehensible places we encounter in our journey?

Look, it’s a sacrifice either way.  If we go on without gratitude — choosing to be bitter, constantly bemoaning our fate — we force ourselves to live in already unhappy conditions with the added drag of our gloomy disposition.  Unwilling  to stay mindful of the blessings we enjoy in spite of our difficulties, as well as the strength and sensitivity God grows best in us through hardship and loss, we sacrifice peace.  We sacrifice contentment.  We sacrifice relationships — and freedom and grace and joy.

But what if we could maintain all those things — and even increase them beyond anything we’ve ever experience before — by making just one sacrifice: the sacrifice of thanksgiving?

I have learned along the way that, regardless of how I may feel, anything that makes me need God is (ultimately, in the truest sense) a blessing.  Be it disappointment.  Be it physical suffering.  Be it mental or relational anguish.

And if you must go through what you’re facing now anyway (should God choose not to lift it miraculously, which He can always do and we are always free to pray for it), why make it even worse by withdrawing from His grace and fellowship, enduring life on the raw edge without relying on Him for help?  Why not see what could happen if you let the pain drive you closer to His side?”

–Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Choosing Gratitude, pg. 139

(bold mine)

I am seriously considering blogging this book chapter-by-chapter. It’s so good and I want / need to read it again.

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