Despair

I opened my thanksgiving book and was reminded of last week;

Thanksgiving is always greeted by an evening service with our church family. 

The flute, piano and voice trio welcomed the congregation to sing thanksgiving into their hearts. 

I sat patiently behind the pianist and waited...

This is how the sermon began.

If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are better off than the six million people who will not survive the week.

If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of an imprisonment, the agony of torture of the pangs of starvation- you are better off than five hundred million people in the world.

If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, 
arrest, torture or death- you are better off then three billion people in the world.

If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep- you are richer than 75% of the people in the world. 

If you have money in the bank, in yor wallet, or spare change in a dish someplace- you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthiest people- richer than 92% of the rest of the world.

And right then and there... my heart broke.  

It broke because this is what flooded my mind:

Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

Matthew 19:24

So much to be thankful for...  

But what about the giving?

Maybe it isn't thankfulness isn't full until you can reach down and give. 

Later as I sat down to do my soul training exercise, 

The pencil peeled across the page,

outlining the thanksgiving...

And there it is... toward the middle... 

I curl back and recoil as I write it...

"Despair"

How can I be thankful for this?

And the next comes pouring forth in answer...

"Dependence"

Despair, 

No one wants to go there... 

Yet everyone has been there at some point.  

Some live there indefinitely-

The incarcerated, the addict, the less fortunate... 

The 92% that I am not a part of. 

But despair gives a chance for hope.

When I throw my hands up in desperation because that is all there is left- 

I also throw them up in worship of my Lord, 

knowing full well I can't depend on myself anymore- 

And must fully rely on Him.

Dependence, growing out of despair.

So there it is, 

in beween "people who pray" and "giving until you are empty"

And I wonder, 

How will I be called to give?

To pour out today?

So I can fully live thanksgiving.