It was as if my life flashed before my eyes.  With a battle cry as fierce as any barbarian, fire burning in his eyes, my three-year-old leapt from back of the couch, feet back, knees down, straight onto my groin, like some perverse finishing move in the WWE.  I caught him just in the nick of time, but before I even had a moment to sigh in relief my daughter came in with the assist with a headbutt that had me seeing stars.  What came next was the beating of my life, as my daughter held my legs while my son, sitting on my chest, pummeled me into oblivion.

It’s hard to express in words just how full your heart can be on account of your children.

As I wrestled with them on the couch that evening, I was reminded of this.  I was reminded of the immense blessing I’ve been given.  And I was thankful.

Of course, the euphoria doesn’t always last long.  A few minutes later and the house was full of shouting and crying.

“She took that from me!”

“I had it first!”

“No, I had it first!”

“I never get a turn!”

The emotional whiplash of being a parent is not something I’ve ever gotten used to, and I’m not sure I ever will.  In one moment life is good and there is peace in the house.  The very next moment is full of chaos.  One moment you’re a friend, and the next you are a disciplinarian who is perceived as the enemy.

It can be frustrating.  And then when you add to this the beating of the drum, the unrelenting schedule full of work deadlines, doctor appointments, school events, and family get-togethers, it  becomes more difficult to hold onto those precious moments of gratitude you felt earlier. 

In fact, if we’re being honest, in those moments where the stress and anxiety have piled up into a ball of pain and nestled right behind our eyes, it can be difficult to even see what there is to be thankful for.

We need a pause.

We need a breath, a moment, a heartbeat.

There is a story in the Bible about ten men who had leprosy (Luke 17:11-19).  To be more specific, they probably had a number of different skin diseases which left them all highly contagious.  For the safety of their friends, family, and communities, they had to separate themselves and remain in isolation, in the hopes that perhaps one day they might be healed.

Now, these ten men lived in a region between two communities that did not get along.  On the one hand you had the Samaritans, and on the other, the Jews in Galilee.  The ethnic and religious divide between these groups was very stark, so much so that people from either side would not associate from people on the other.

The story goes that Jesus was passing through, and as he did the ten lepers came out to meet him and asked to be healed.

Jesus responded by telling them to go and show themselves to the local priest.  That might strike our ears as an odd response, but this was actually part of the process the Law required for being considered clean.  If anyone had a skin disease, they had to go to the priest.  And if the skin disease went away, they had to go to the priest (Leviticus 13). 

So the men go, and as they are walking they realize that each of them has been healed.

Can you imagine?  How long had these men been isolated from everyone they know and love?  And now, at long last, they can go home.

The story doesn’t tell us whether the men made it to the priest or not.  In fact, we don’t learn much else about the men after they go their way. 

Except for one.

One of the ten, who was a Samaritan, after seeing that he had been healed, rushed back, fell on his face at Jesus feet, and thanked him.

I am amazed at this response, and I think in the story Jesus is as well.

This man hit the pause button.  No, more than that, he pulled the lever and stopped all the wheels and all the machinery of life from turning just so that he could go and express his gratitude.

Keep in mind, this man had been commanded to go and fulfill his Biblical obligations.  Also, he was a Samaritan, a foreigner, and according to all the social customs of the day, absolutely no one was expecting him to go back and thank a Jew.

Yet this man stopped.  Instead of rushing home or anywhere else he wanted to go, he went out of his way to express how thankful he was.

Jesus was pleased, and took this show of gratitude as a sign of faith.

I’ve been thinking a lot about that story, and I think it asks a very important question of all of us: when was the last time we pulled the lever?  When was the last time we put a good, hard pause on everything going on around us just so that we can show our gratitude to the Lord?

It seems like an impossibility.  In our modern day, everything is accounted for.  The minutes of the day are assigned their task.  The moments of our lives are culled and curated on social media.  The caffeine high gets us up in the morning.  The dopamine rush keeps us up at night.

This is what I mean by “the machine”. 

Our lives are lived in the machine, and often our lives are lived for the machine.  We often want it to stop, but we don’t know how.  As the gears spin and grind, how can we be thankful?

The answer is in the story.

We have to stop.  We have to say no.  We have to pull the lever and halt the machine, even if only temporarily, for our sake and the sake of our soul.

This is what I keep returning to: the man came back.  The man stopped everything and came back to say “Thank you.”

It had to be hard.  In a way, it had to be painful.  Everything in him screamed to return home.  But his gratitude shouted louder than all the other noises stirring in him.  He just had to thank Jesus.

Is this where we are?  Do we recognize all the blessings that are around us every day?  Do we yearn to pause the machine but are afraid that if we do everything will fall apart? 

Or perhaps a different metaphor is in order.  I know many people who feel like they are constantly spinning plates on a stick.  It’s a difficult balancing act, and the fear is if they stop even for a moment the whole thing will come crashing down around them.

But if that is the case, then we need to hear the last part of the story again.  When the man returned to show his gratitude, Jesus told him, “Rise and go.  Your faith has made you well.”

Jesus receives our gratitude as a sign of faith.  And faith is exactly what it takes to hit the pause button.

It takes faith to say no.  It takes faith to leave things undone when we know there’s something more important we need to do.

There are plenty of responsibilities to keep me busy all hours of the day.  If my body would let me, I could go twenty-four hours a day working on something, and still I would not be able to complete everything.

But I learned a hard lesson several years ago about the importance of saying no.  It’s difficult to walk away from a task before the work is done, but in doing so I open up myself to something better: I get to wrestle with my kids.

By saying no to the needs of the moment, I say yes to the blessings of the day.

And the result?  A sore groin, and a grateful heart.  I am reminded that God blesses us in a thousand different ways every day.  By hitting pause, I give myself permission to not only enjoy them, but to say “Thank you” to the One who gave them.

What I’m suggesting is by no means easy.  It is, however, necessary.

To pull the lever and stop the machine, it’s going to take courage.  To carve out of your busy schedule a healthy amount of time where everything stops, it’s going to require a healthy dose of faith.  The question you have to answer is, are you willing to do it?  Are you willing to hit pause and trust that everything won’t fall apart around you?

Gratitude opens our hearts and prepares us to receive more from God.  It’s the proper response to what He has already done for us.  It’s the surest way to bring color back to our lives and help us see what all the work is really for, in the end.

So take courage!  Hit the pause button.  Find ways to show your gratitude for the thousands of blessings that are around you even now.

It’s an act of faith, and it will heal you.