Yesterday was a strange Christmas. For one thing, it was 60 degrees and sunny (versus a more typically-Illinois below-freezing temperature). Most of the gifts we bought were not for each other, but for a dog. Also, we have a small wire fence around our tree, due to the aforementioned dog. It’s very…aesthetically interesting.
In case you were curious, Dog’s favorite gift is a toy duck I had been eyeing for him at Petsmart. His least favorite is a new harness that deters pulling during walks.
Throughout this season I’ve been meditating on what it means to wait, and, though it’s ironic, I’ve been thinking about what I should be doing while I wait. As previously mentioned, I hate waiting. I get bored and restless. More than even those things, my brain defaults so easily to anxiety that there’s a certain terror I feel when having to wait and to be still. For this reason alone, being still while waiting seems an exhausting endeavor, an ideal that’s nearly impossible to attain because I either can just have my head filled with new and old anxieties, or stop most of it before it starts by filling the time with a mindless phone game or YouTube video. It becomes a lesser of two evils type of decision when it’s too difficult to keep up the mental fight of anxiety versus being still, staying present.
I long to “be here now”. To have the presence of mind that helps me be present where I am, to be fully aware of my surroundings. I was listening to a podcast through Renovare today that discussed meeting God in the present, and I felt my heart long for that. It longed to meet God where I am, now, and to experience the kind of freedom that comes with letting go, even for a moment, of the worries I have about the past and the future. The podcast also went into how paying attention to the present moment, including all the sensory elements of it, actually helps to breed gratitude.
After taking this in, I realized even more how much of a blessing my dog is for me right now, and how he can be a means for teaching being still, being present, being thankful.
Soon after we got Dog, I have inadvertently created a daily morning ritual that lasts maybe all of three minutes. Dog wakes me up around 7 or 7:30. I sleepily get out of bed, sit near his crate and open it, and he comes out drowsy and yawning. Before I (or husband) take him outside, Dog lets me pet his fur and rub his tummy and scrunch his fluffy ears. In that moment, I don’t have to say or do or think about anything, and he’s too tired to make my arms the victims of his teething. And each morning, as I feel his thick brown fur and catch a whiff of his nasty morning breath and hear his sweet puppy yawns, I’m overwhelmed by the fact that he’s my dog and how much I love him. Sure enough, in that moment, I’m thankful for Dog, I’m thankful for the circumstances that led to us adopting Dog, I’m thankful for all dogs and that God chose to create them, I’m thankful that dogs and humans can be companions, etc. It has become a simple way to practice being still, being present that I’ve accidentally stumbled upon. And that’s three minutes of being present. If I could apply that to the course of my day, I feel like I’d have gratefulness seeping out my nose.
I wish I had been able to apply more stillness/present-ness throughout the course of yesterday, Christmas day. I was thankful in the moment about the weather, and that it meant we could play outside with Dog. But it wasn’t until the end of yesterday when I more fully realized how many gifts we had been given throughout the course of the day. It was an abundance. In the morning we got to visit and eat with two friends, in the afternoon we got to open our house to another friend, and in the evening we went to a different friend’s home for dinner with several others. On the car ride home at the end I let my mind go through the events from morning to evening, revisiting the sensory memories: the sugar from the liege waffles melting on my tongue, my heart’s leap of joy as I looked through friends’ baby announcement photos, the compassionate face of a friend as I shared candidly about some emotional pain, champagne bubbles bursting onto my nose, soreness in my belly from laughing, the glow of candles and string lights, compliments received over a dessert I wasn’t sure would turn out right, the handwriting of a thoughtful note in a Christmas card, and finally, all the warm hugs from people I love, and who genuinely love me too. When all this and more sunk in, my heart response was one overcome with gratitude. How could I respond in any other way?
We wait, because Christians are a people who wait. It’s a challenge learning to be still in the midst of it. I’ve experienced though that sometimes God gives us gifts to help with the waiting. If we pay attention to the present and receive these gifts, they have the potential to make us stop in our tracks, be still, and recognize him in the moment. And, ultimately, teach us how to constantly be thankful.