FoCuS

"Happy Labor Day!" they say, and you wonder what that means when you're the one laboring and you're not happy.  
But coffee sparks the soul, gives you energy to turn the frown upside down so that you focus on the happy--
GRATITUDE--noun 1) I have a job.  2) I am able to work.  3) ‎When I get off, I'm going to go home and watch White Christmas and eat delicious pasta and drink peppermint tea--because I can.
Still, so many reasons to complain bubble up and you just want to, but. . .

"Now let me tell you that the will of God is all that is necessary, and what it does not give you is of no use to you at all. My friends, you lack nothing. You would be very ashamed if you knew what the experiences you call setbacks, upheavals, pointless disturbances, and tedious annoyances really are. You would realize that your complaints about them are nothing more nor less than blasphemies--though that never occurs to you. Nothing happens to you except by the will of God, and yet his beloved children curse it because they do not know it for what it is."

-Fr. Jean Pierre de Caussade, Abandonment to Divine Providence

What gets me the most is that these complaints are "nothing more nor less than blasphemies."  Blasphemy, unfaithfulness, lack of trust, ingratitude--all of these separate us from God, turn our focus to the dark un-pleasantries rather than to the greater goodness.

God works in mysterious ways.  I'm beginning to understand that to trust means embracing the mystery in all its seeming injustice.  I, therefore, reaffirm my trust in His Mercy.  All is out of my control and all in His, and so, all is well.

*thanks for the quote, Justine!