By Ashlie Miller

Is this a demanding season for you? It seems to be for many of us. Maybe everyone needs your input or your listening ear while you struggle to find time to vent your frustrations and worries to someone. Your schedule is busy with purposeful but also exhausting events. The children are especially busy, needing you as chauffeur or as a nurse to administer lots of TLC as they work through another cold or stomach bug. With a schedule limiting evenings at home, it feels like the list of chores needing completion – dishes, clothing, basic cleaning – keeps building up untouched. Days at the office seem incredibly demanding – particularly right before the holidays and vacation. And to top it all off, the 15+-year-old vehicle needs a new ABS, engine, or tires, and you had hoped to use that money for something else.

Sometimes, when we are tired and overworked, we miss the time to pause and wonder, falling into a pattern of complaining. “I don’t think I can listen to another person and provide an answer or an undistracted, understanding listening ear!” “Do the kids have to go to that social gathering to connect with friends?” “This house is such a mess! Why do we have all this stuff?!” “Why do they always need me so much this season?” “Why can’t we get a new vehicle?”

I’ve heard words like that even exit my own lips. Sadly, some of my closest friends have, too. It isn’t that we are even guilty of complaining a lot, but we find that one person we can vent to. A dear friend reminded me during one particularly emotional and heavy season when friends needed my empathy and encouragement, and I wasn’t sure I could help one more person – “What a blessing that they feel they can come to you and that you have something to offer them.” Ouch. Yes, what a blessing that they see a patient, ready-to-listen person who may offer them hope, even if inside, I feel quite differently. 

Those children who are wearing me out physically and sometimes emotionally – we were never sure we would get to have one – but five?! And to have a husband – an only child himself – who was happy to expand our family to such an unfamiliar limit for him? Amazing! That house that never gets to be picture perfect is a testimony to a full home with lots of life (“Where no oxen are, the manger is clean…” Proverbs 14:4). Our vehicles have not entirely worn out – reminding me of the sandals the children of Israel wore for 40 years in the desert. And as I catch my breath between it all, turning the corner of another birthday, I can celebrate having the strength and energy to keep up with family, ministry, and friends. 

I could complain. I have complained. Scripture gives stern warnings and stories about complaining (read up on those Old Testament Israelites!). But I can learn from them and remember that the things I complain about are the answers to someone else’s as-of-yet unanswered prayers. Maybe when I run out of things to give thanks for this week, I’ll instead write out a list of things I complain about and turn those into things to thank God for. Maybe you can, too!

Ashlie Miller counts her blessings and tries to minimize her complaints in Concord, NC, where she and her husband raise their family.