Enter Into His Gates With Thanksgiving

Calvary Messenger is a small, Mennonite publication that is sent out monthly. When I was a child, my mom served as editor for the "Junior Stories" and "Hints From Home - Acres" sections. 

Incidentally, I have a stack of the old, original articles from her files.... 

I well remember mom's editor job, mostly because I typed up articles for her at a very young age -- long before I knew which finger to place on which key! I loved it. I also remember her stress over meeting those deadlines every month, although I was young enough that I didn't understand all of that fully. 

Recently, I had the privilege of being asked to write an article for the section of Calvary Messenger that is now titled "A Woman After God's Heart". This is really the first article of mine that has been published anywhere other than my blog, so it felt rather special for it to have a strong connection to my mom's writing. I know many of you may have read it already but a kind reader suggested I share it here, so I am doing that today. 

   Enter Into His Gates With Thanksgiving

There's a small, black journal on the floor by my bed -- yes, I know you probably keep yours neatly in your nightstand; some of us just make stacks on the floor. Anyway, there's a small, black journal and in it is scrawled Diaries of the Coronavirus March 2020. For nine long weeks I kept a daily record of one of the most surreal times of my life. Days when time seemed to stand

still and accomplishing any task felt like pushing your way through a sea of sticky peanut butter. Days when the only way to survive were putting one foot in front of the other and snatching chances to hide in some dark corner with a large box of tissues.

My life before March was an easy one. I'm the wife of one, stay at home mother of five. My oldest is a high school graduate, now working with his father, and the rest ranged from tenth to first grade. My days were spent cleaning, cooking, doing laundry -- so much laundry! And having ample time alone to nourish my introverted soul. If I wanted to accept outside activities, like volunteering at a local thrift store, I usually could. If I wanted to stay at home and do my own

thing, that was usually a valid option. March 2020 changed all of that.

"Sunday, March 15", the first entry in that black journal reads. "The first day of canceled normality."

In one fell swoop, during that fateful week in March, my world turned completely inside out. Church was canceled, school was closed and we welcomed our first foster placement, a four year old little girl. In one weekend's time, my days went from 7 hours of alone time to zero; from many hours of independence to high alert 24/7. To say it was an adjustment would be the

biggest understatement of the year.

I don't know how you deal with life when it throws you big challenges? Maybe you are the kind who enjoys them -- I live with a man who seems to. The bigger the challenge, the more optimism and determination to solve and conquer exudes from his person. You would think that nineteen years of living with that attitude would somehow transmit at least a small portion of it to my soul. Sadly, it hasn't. My instinctive modus operandi when big challenges appear is to run as

far and as fast as possible. But, sometimes there's nowhere to run. Sometimes the challenge must be faced and walked through, even when it feels impossibly hard.

So, I walked.

I walked into homeschooling using Abeka videos with only cell phone internet and four students who all needed to watch Math and Phonics and be in a Zoom meeting now. I walked into coaxing a first grader through his work who, when asked if mom is just that bad of a teacher replied promptly and adamantly, "Yes!!" And I walked into the heart of a four year old with whom the 'honeymoon stage' lasted about one week. Essentially, I walked into a life so out of my control that every day became one more vat of peanut butter to wade through. I dreaded getting up inthe morning and starting a new day. 

Added to the stress of everything else was the fact that underneath it all I was sure that I was not cut out for foster care. I never dreamed of doing this, see? I never really wanted it; never longed for it. I probably should have said no long ago and we never would have gotten to this point. "Foster care isn't for everyone," said all the wise people. Why couldn't I just be one of

those and stop feeling guilty? Why couldn't I just ignore the fact that we had prayed about a ministry opportunity for our family and because the need was great, we felt led to make ourselves available?

Every morning I would lay in bed and beg, "Please God, give us a good day. Please help me be patient. Please let school go smoothly. Please make the children play nice. Please help the four year old not to have a tantrum; please help me know how to handle it when she does". I knew

there was no way I could do this on my own, so I turned to the One who had strength to give away. Somehow it didn't really make me feel that much better.

Oh sure, if the day went well, I felt better. If the sun shone and the school work got done and the time outs were minimal, then the begging felt helpful. If my kind husband brought pizza for supper or spent his precious after-work hours taking the youngest members of the household to

the park, then I felt much, much better! But on the inevitable days when things didn't go well, I lived for bedtime and wondered if the energy expended begging was really even worth it.

I don't remember exactly what brought me to the Sunday where I looked my choices squarely in the eye. I only know I had been wallowing in self pity and constantly thinking how much easier all this strange life would be without a four year old yet too, and I realized that it had to stop.

Somewhere in the process that day of choosing repentance and joy, the verses in Psalm 100 became a word picture in my mind.

"Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him and bless his name." (Psalm 100:4)

In the days that followed, I began picturing the start of my day as entering into His gates. Making a conscious choice to enter those gates with Thanksgiving changed my prayers from frantic begging into grateful praising -- "Thank you Lord, for the gift of this day! Thank you for your faithfulness! Thank you for answered prayer yesterday!" This adjustment in perspective changed nothing in my situation but the resulting peace and joy made an astonishing difference. Almost without realizing it, my focus imperceptibly shifted from inward to outward, bringing a

change in my own heart that spilled over into the struggles and challenges of each day.

It would be completely dishonest to leave the impression that this practice of gratitude turned me into a bubbling fountain of perpetual joy. All you would need to do is ask my husband and family to find that to be untrue! However, there is no denying that the practice did make a

difference. The idea of entering into His gates with thanksgiving is jotted down in the little black journal on the floor beside my bed. When I look back on those nine, dramatic weeks of quarantine I will remember many things. I will always remember the fear and the turmoil; the

challenges and the enormity of change; the days of struggle and putting one foot in front of the other. But I hope that in my memories I will also recall the gem of truth that I learned from Psalm 100:4.