Another Mundane Post

This morning's devotions were on Contentment {Glimpses of Grace: Treasuring the Gospel in your Home, by Gloria Furman}. Where do we find our contentment? What "things" do we base our contentment around? This quote from the devotion really hit home, "Experiencing grace in the mundane is about far more than counting your blessings or being thankful for the life you've been given."  The mundane - meaning "lacking interest or excitement; dull."

Let that soak in a  minute...

...

"Experiencing grace in the mundane is about far more than counting your blessings or being thankful 

for the life you've been given."

I know I'm blessed. I thank the good Lord daily for the numerous blessings I've received. However, I am not sure the last time I felt grace or blessed for doing laundry, doing dishes, picking up the messes for the 50th time for the week. I can't remember the last time I said, "Thank you Lord, and Hallelujah, for giving me cat litter to scoop!" 

I will admit right here and now, that I rarely see the grace and blessing in the mundane. I drag my feet getting out of bed a lot of days, it's another day of the same old thing. Get the kid up, make breakfast, pack lunches, work, answering the phone, doing the mundane at work, doing the little things that I find so aggravating at times, on my lunch I usually do some laundry, get dinner around, scoop the cat litter, take out the garbage, etc... and the day rolls forward in the normal mundane fashion. And rarely, if ever, do I stop mid chore, mid work day, and say "Thank you Lord for chores..."

We thank God for the big things. The roof over our head, the jobs that provide, the food in our fridge, but we don't thank him for the little things that come with keeping that job, paying the bills to keep that home, buying the gas that gets us to the grocery store to buy the food that feeds us. Are you with me? We are grateful for the big picture. We are grateful for families and love, and life and health. We are rarely grateful with the daily grind that makes the rest of those blessings possible. 

How many times have I mumbled under my breath while doing these mundane things? How many times have I ranted out loud that dishes and laundry are NEVER ENDING... How many times have I complained about doing the mundane for the people I love? I have not been grateful. I have not looked for the grace or the blessings while doing the every day mundane chores. If you are like me then more times than not, we complain about the mundane. 

I've been seeing a lot of posts on Lent, today is Fat Tuesday and tomorrow the season of Lent begins. I have never done lent. I was raised Baptist/Bible and we just didn't do that. However, at TVC they have a "Fast Forward" where you don't just give up something, you give up something and you pick something else to do instead. So, this year I will give up Complaining about the Mundane. I will replace it with being Thankful for the Mundane. 

I will be thankful and count the blessings, the little ones. The ones that lead to the big ones. I will be thankful for every interrupting phone call and inconvenience during my work day, because that means I have a job. I will be thankful for the inconvenient requests and chores that I have to squeeze into my schedule for my family, because that means I have a family that relies on me, who I have the amazing opportunity to bless in return by doing these mundane things for them. I will be thankful every time I have to pay a bill, because that means we have income that provides for us. 

The mundane. The mundane is full of grace and blessings. Even though we don't see the boring, non-exciting, little things as full of grace or blessed, they are. Today when you count your blessings, when you look for God's grace, don't look at the big picture. Look for the mundane, and find God's grace and blessings there.