Wednesday, May 19, 2021

Reacting With Gratitude Not Guilt


Saturday morning I slept in, and even when I woke up late I did not want to get up and face the day.  There are so many projects to do, and they all sounded hard, and staying in bed sounded easy and comfortable.  Maybe I could hide from my projects and challenges by hiding under the covers?

Derek eventually came in to check on me.  He had gotten up earlier when Teddy was crying outside.  I could see that he had already been working on one of our projects.  He went back out and back to work and I dragged myself out of bed and got moving.  My day wasn't entirely useless.  I did accomplish a few things.  It is just that Derek ended up doing a LOT more of the things we had talked about doing the day before.

Did I react with gratitude?  Sadly -- though I was grateful -- the reigning feeling was guilt.  I "should" have been up helping.  I "should" have painted shelves with Derek, or helped get the desk ready to paint, or paint the mirror frames.  Derek works so hard all week, and I was sure I had just let him down.  I was sorry.

On Sunday it dawned on me that Derek, who is always impressively good at helping, and getting things done, did not do what he did to produce guilt.  He would have appreciated my gratitude so much more!  He made progress on projects that have been stalled for months!  He did things that I really did not want to do.

I am thankful to have been reminded again that it is better to react with gratitude and not with guilt!

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