Gratitude - The Only Antidote for Resentment

It was midnight and I was at the airport, in Doha, waiting for my connecting flight, back home from Spain, where I had just spent four days. The week before that I had been at the Drakensburg, for a full week. I know hey, life was kinda awesome. I couldn’t believe this was actually my life. Both trips had fully paid for, I must add. I serve an awesome God, that’s the only explanation for all the extravagance. Not that He isn’t always awesome but I think every now and then He throws in indulgence, just to show off, just because He can. And to think that this was two days away from my birthday, what a birthday gift! This was going to be a great year, I could feel it. I was so filled with gratitude that I prayed that I don’t lose the feeling. My prayer was for the strength to look beyond whatever situation I would find myself in the future and play back the tape of recent extravagances, to remind me that God is always looking out for me. So fast forward to six weeks and the festive season hit bringing with it an emotional roller coaster. I blame it on the holidays and too much time to do nothing but just think. It seemed like ‘everyone’ was away or had plans for the festive season and here I was sitting at home ‘all alone’. Not that I was alone but it fed my melancholy to believe I was. This really unsettled me, as much as I tried to focus on all the things going right in my life and be grateful for a break, there was this hollow feeling I could not get rid of. I blame it on the hype that’s created around Christmas time. There is this cloying cheerfulness in the air and everyone appears to be all enthusiastic and eager. Shopping malls blink and glitter and play this saccharine music than truly annoys but you find yourself singing along to. Everyone is overly friendly and in great spirits. It was too much, I was wishing for normal. I could not wait for the hysteria to die down so that life can go back to its normal tedium and dreaded Mondays. I still want to have a year filled with joy and gratitude though. I think I have done enough complaining and crying over the years. Maybe that’s what the 30s are meant to be, trying to figure it out, make mistakes and cry over them (or is that your 20s, I don’t know, I could be a late bloomer). I have great plans for my countdown towards 40. Yes, I’ll be turning 40 this year. I want the coming year to be different. I want to be different in the coming year. I want to finally lay down all the ghosts, no luggage required. I need to enter my 40s free and light-hearted. I want to skip into the new decade with a spring in my step. There will be no bemoaning getting old (I did plenty of that when I turned 30!). I want to spend the build up to my 40th in complete gratitude for life. I want to rediscover the awe of living. I want to be alive and live large, loud, bright and colourful, thanking God for every moment for He is always worthy to be praised. But I now realise that it’s not going to be as easy as I assumed. It will require effort and deliberate action on my side. I realise that happiness does not lie in the manufactured commercialised communal ‘joy’ we are thrown into every so often. It needs to come from within, irrespective of circumstances. Happiness is truly a decision and when there is conflict between my head and my heart I will defer to my head and decide to be happy. I will fake it till I make it. I am going to laugh, love, eat, spend, give, receive, share, dance, sing, pray, read, play, see etc. more. That is my promise to myself. And I will do it all with grace and a grateful heart because, as I learnt at the Drakensburg, the best antidote for resentment is gratitude. Watch this space Hugs ‘n kisses T