The Beautiful No

Donald Miller announced the winner to the story contest yesterday, sadly it was not me. I realized along the process that wanting/wishing/hoping/asking is the most important "winning" I could do. Somewhere along my 44 (almost 45) years I have had the hoping taken out of me. I am a positive person and usually quite content, so this surprised me when I realized it. Between the last week when they originally were supposed to announce the winner and yesterday I began to realize that not hoping/wishing/wanting somehow happened because I thought I was too fragile to be disappointed. I truly am not.

I don't like disappointment, but I would far rather hear the beautiful "NO" than live a life that is void of hoping. I also want to be able to hear the beautiful "NO" if it is one that protects me from ruin. Looking back the hard "No's" that I/we have received along our path have always been the best answer. That house we had our hearts set on - big, beautiful and a money pit - that no saved us from financial ruin as I can now see how much the current owners are having to do to keep up. How much more life giving our real home is because it doesn't need everything done to make it livable. That NO was truly a gift. We didn't think so at the time, but looking back truly understand it's beauty.

So, I am not fragile, and I will keep hoping/wishing/wanting/dreaming and listening for that beautiful no, even if it disappoints - because everything truly is unfolding as it should.

Giving Thanks

This being Thanksgiving weekend in Canada my good friend Dan Wilt is one thing I'm giving thanks for. He's posted a sneak peek to the talk he's preparing for church tomorrow.

I promise I'll post the link here when they upload it - but here is some of the beauty:

“Sweet flower” is what her name means. Grandma also told us it was the name of an ancient Armenian princess. Grandma’s first name was Siranouche. My wife’s middle name is Siranouche. My daughter’s middle name is Siranouche. “Sweet flower.” So appropriate in each life it adorns.

As my children encircled her feet, Grandma would tell the old stories. On one occasion, I taped an hour of those stories, and the harder questions were asked. “Grandma,” queried my daughter, “How did your mommy and daddy die?” I interrupted, telling Grandma she didn’t need to answer that question if she didn’t want to. Her response was matter-of-fact. “They must know, honey. They must know such things.”

At 95 years old, Siranouche was one of the last living survivors of the Armenian death marches under the Ottoman Turks at the turn of the 20th century. A mass genocide that the world ignored, Adolph Hitler is infamous for a statement made to a German commander: “Who remembers the Armenians; who will remember the Jews?”

Siranouche and her family lived in a small Armenian village called Orphah. She recalls the beauty that was once her family’s estate. “I remember playing among the fruit trees in the orchard,” she says with a smile. At 14, young Siranouche and her family were awakened in the middle of the night by Turkish soldiers. She, her mother and siblings stood and watched as the fathers and husbands were huddled into their small Armenian churches – which were then burned to the ground. The screams still haunted her now aged mind.

She remembers the death marches through the Syrian Desert. How her mother would spread her skirt over her five children in the desert’s cool, night air to keep them warm as they slept. She remembers the Syrian women lining the march, hoping to help save some of the children by taking them as their own. Though the youngest died along the march, Siranouche’s mother (my wife’s great grandmother) gave away the rest of her children in one day – such a horrible joy for her – to know they might live, but that she would die soon, far away from her precious jewels.

Her new Syrian family treated her well, though she was a servant. One night, she had a dream. In her dream, Jesus came to her with outstretched arms. Using no words, she could see in his eyes that everything would be alright. From that point on, she knew she worshipped a different God than those around her, and she knew that someone was taking care of her.

Despite her life of hardship, Grandma ‘Anouche was known to her family as one of the most grateful human beings they had ever known. It seemed as though every breath she took marked another moment to be celebrated. Her great pain as a young girl had taught her the “art of appreciation” – the capacity to look deep into every moment, person, place or thing she encountered, and to find something worthy of celebration.

You can read the rest of the post here: Cultivating A Grateful Heart