Reflections on Gratitude, episode 99

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If you love a prodigal, you can discover help and hope

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for your wilderness journey right here

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at When You Love a Prodigal,

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and also help and hope for your own life journey.

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My name is Judy Douglass,

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and I'm your host for When You Love a Prodigal.

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I hope that our look at the mercy of God

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over the past four weeks,

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his mercy toward us,

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and his mercy he wants to pour out on our prodigals

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through us was transforming for you.

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And I would ask, how have you applied it?

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And today and next week, episodes 99 and 100,

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still hard for me to believe.

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I will be sharing with you some personal reflections

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from my life, my years with a prodigal,

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and most recently, a little bit on the loss of my husband.

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Today I want to emphasize a very familiar message

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from scripture, give thanks in everything.

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I know we've talked about it some before,

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but I find it's essential to keep making progress on that.

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Learning to say thank you to God has transformed my life.

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I believe it can do the same for you,

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even on the hardest days with your prodigal.

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I'm going to ask you to join me on a brief journey

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through my seven decades of life.

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Hopefully, my gratitude journey will bless and encourage you.

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So be sure to jot down anything

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that God sparks in your mind, alerts you,

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this is something just for you.

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Now, I haven't always been a grateful person.

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Growing up, all I really wanted was my own way.

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And well, I was grateful when I got it,

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but I wasn't very nice when I didn't.

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I am especially thankful therefore

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that God didn't leave me there.

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He has taught me over and over the need for

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and blessings from giving thanks in all things.

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A few days ago, I was thanking God

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for some of the great answers to prayer

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that he has given me over my life.

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It led me back to look over all the years that I have lived.

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And I have had a good life filled with good people,

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opportunities, adventures, answers to prayer.

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And I am deeply thankful for all of that.

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And of course, over the seven plus decades of my life,

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there have also been disappointments, difficulties,

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challenges, even deep hurts and great losses

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that have come as well.

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It has taken time, but I have learned to say thank you

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for those things as well.

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So here are a few highlights

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of each of the decades of my life,

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which I celebrate and give thanks for.

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My childhood, I had a happy childhood.

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My parents, my three sisters, and oh, many dogs, cats, birds,

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and even horses.

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My sisters and I did fight some,

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especially one other one with me.

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But we also enjoyed a lot of time playing outdoors together

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and with all the neighborhood children.

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Sometimes I wrote little plays

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and convinced the neighbor kids to present them

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to the parents and others in the neighborhood.

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It was a fun adventure.

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And I felt growing up safe, secure, and loved.

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And then there were my teen years.

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This of course was a more challenging decade.

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I am grateful for a good education.

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For years with my horses,

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for beginning exposure to the worlds

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and the needs around me.

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College summers included teaching young girls

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how to ride horses, which I absolutely loved.

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And without a doubt, the highlight of my teen years

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and my whole life was meeting Jesus.

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My friend Patty took me to a Colorado Young Life camp

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one winter, and there I learned to ski, sort of.

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I met some cute boys and I met my savior.

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I learned that Jesus would forgive my sins

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and show me his better way for my life.

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An amazing promise to one who always wanted her own way.

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The great adventure of walking with God began

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of learning to say, I choose your way, Lord.

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In my 20s, I graduated from the University of Texas

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with a journalism degree and a heart to serve God.

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I love beginning to discover who God had made me to be

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and what he expected, created me to do.

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Writing, editing, and leading filled these years

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on mission with God with Campus Crusade for Christ.

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I was a member of the Campus Crusade for Christ crew,

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and I had the privilege of touching lives for eternity,

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and that really motivated me.

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But God kept working on my pride

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and thinking I was always right.

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I grew in intimacy with God

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and recognizing the many hard realities

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of the world out there, the one we live in,

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and in awe that God invited me

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to be on his kingdom building team.

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Ever so slowly, gratitude began to grow.

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The 30s.

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This decade was marked by incredible gifts,

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my marriage to Steve Douglass,

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and our two daughters, Debbie and Michelle.

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Steve has always been so encouraging to me,

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believing I could do so much more than I thought I could.

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Babies, though, were much more challenging to me

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than years of magazine editing had been.

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Yeah, my first baby cried for months and didn't sleep,

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and I thought I am a total failure.

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And I told God we'd made a mistake,

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and he said, no, no, this daughter,

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this baby is just what you need right now.

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So I made some new discoveries

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of who God was forming me to be

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and learned to appreciate the beautiful girls

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that he had entrusted to me and my husband

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and the amazing instructive gifts that they were.

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I've written many blog posts

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about what I've learned from my children,

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and I could spend the rest of this session on that,

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but probably not a good idea.

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I have some other things I wanna say,

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but you see, God uses everyone he puts in our lives

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to do the work in us that we need to have done.

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That includes our prodigals.

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I was also very privileged to have two books published

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during my 30s.

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The first one was Single and Complete,

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and the second one was He Loves Me.

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Could I really believe

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that God had a wonderful plan for my life?

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In the 40s, I found that I was really busy.

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The primary focus was parenting,

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and it added so much to my life.

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Giving and receiving abundant love,

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recognizing wonderful strengths

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and great weaknesses in my life.

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Parenting with my husband in new and meaningful ways.

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And the joy of watching our girls

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grow into beautiful human beings.

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I began to speak a lot,

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and I published another book called What Can a Mother Do?

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Finding Significance in Home and Beyond.

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And then there was the arrival of a special gift from God.

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In my 50s, I learned to thank God in everything

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in a deep and life-changing way.

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That special gift from God was our son, Josh,

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who came to us at almost 10

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from a very difficult early childhood.

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Many issues plagued him from those early years

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and brought formidable, hard, challenging concerns

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to him and our family for many years.

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And I've talked about those very challenging years

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for more than two years on this podcast.

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So if you've been listening, you know a lot about that.

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As I struggled to help our son

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make some better choices for his life,

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actually even to choose life when he was not going to,

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God repeatedly reminded me to give thanks in all things.

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Josh became my gratitude tutor,

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and I'm so grateful because I learned so much

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from those hard years that we went through.

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In my 60s, two significant opportunities

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filled those years for me.

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The first was wonderful, partnering with my husband

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to lead Campus Crusade for Christ crew.

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I traveled the world.

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I lived an ambassador role.

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I was writing and speaking and listening and talking

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and loving and encouraging our global staff

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to inspire them to seek to become

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all that God created them to be.

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My own inadequacy and unworthiness

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for such an amazing opportunity kept me on my knees

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in humble dependence and overwhelming gratitude.

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Why in the world would God give me

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such an unbelievable opportunity?

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The second life-changing reality of this decade

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was my grandchildren.

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How many times did I hear people say,

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wait till you have grandkids?

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Indeed, and amen, such joy and fun they have given.

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What an opportunity to invest in the next generation.

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It's become a real calling for me to look at ways

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to be able to love and encourage and give hugs to people.

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To love and encourage and give hugs

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to all those 10 grandchildren that I have.

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One of them has a birthday today.

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And then I learned gratitude.

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Oh yes, gratitude for each one of them,

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but also looking for ways to help them learn gratitude

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because pretty near everybody has to be on a journey

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to learn to give thanks in everything.

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I published another book in that decade

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called Letters to My Children, Secrets of Success.

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And then there are the 70s, and I am in my 70s

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into the eighth decade of my life.

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These years are bringing some weariness,

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less energy, more aches and pains, but I'm still here.

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I can still read and write and speak and love,

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encourage, pray for the people in our ministry

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and my growing extended family.

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I published two more books, Shaped by God: Words for Life,

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and When You Love a Prodigal:

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90 Days of Grace for the Wilderness.

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And if you are listening to this podcast

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and have not had a copy of my book,

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I would really encourage you to get one

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because it's gonna bless you

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in the hard journey that you're in.

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You know, I just never get over it.

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That God chose me and called me

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to various roles in my life,

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that he equipped me for each one of them.

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He opened doors of opportunity like this podcast.

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He imparted wisdom, which I always needed,

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also courage, because I needed that as well.

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When you're setting out on something new,

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you need some courage for that.

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And he was so kind to anoint my words

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since words are the main thing that I use in my ministry.

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God astounds me every day with his love and his grace.

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And apparently, he isn't through with me yet.

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Though sadly, I continue on God's good plans for my life

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without my wonderful partner, Steve,

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who left for heaven five months ago.

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It's the greatest loss I have experienced.

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And yet, even in that great loss

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and in missing my wonderful partner,

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so very much, God has enabled me to keep saying,

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thank you, Lord, even through tears,

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but with true gratitude.

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I'm just amazed at how God fulfills his promises.

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And when I asked him how I could live without my husband,

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he said, I'll be with you.

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And he has been.

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And I can say thank you for that.

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So until he calls me home,

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which could be tomorrow or next year or 10 years from now,

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and my family people live a long time usually,

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I will keep going, depending on him,

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trusting him, besieging him for everything that I need,

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and thanking my loving and gracious God.

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So what about you?

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What time in your life are you especially grateful for?

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And right now, even in your prodigal wilderness,

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do you find you can say thank you, Lord?

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Or what might you want to say thank you, Lord, for?

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Because that's what he's called us to, a life of gratitude.

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It's transforming, I promise.

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Next week will be the 100th episode.

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And we're gonna talk about another incredibly important

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understanding and way to live.

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And that is that we learn to live and love like Jesus.

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You don't want to miss it.

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Invite a friend to join you.

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God bless you.