Thankfulness
Thankfulness. At times the concept seems trite. This time of year, it’s obligatory and prescribed. We gather with our families and/or friends to celebrate Thanksgiving, a holiday dedicated to the notion of thankfulness. Through the years I can attest that in preparation for family gatherings thankfulness was the very last feeling I was feeling.
When I was a child, it was easy enough to be thankful. The holiday meant seeing my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. At 5 years old that was pretty fantastic. But at 12, my Poppy, the life of the party on Mom’s side passed away. Later that year, when I was 13, we moved 700 miles away from our family. Holidays would never be the same. There would no longer be fun antics, such as that time when my father’s turkeys greeted my grandparents in the drive way on Thanksgiving, and my Poppy walked into the house demanding to see the wrapper from the turkey to confirm that it was indeed purchased from the store and not butchered in the back yard. Poppy was raised in Philadelphia and, like me, preferred his meat to be anonymous. There would be no cramming 20+ people into our tiny home. There would be no running to 4 different Christmas gatherings on the same day. The holiday was reduced to just my parents, my sisters, and me. That first year after we moved, my parents joked about just putting our still packed boxes under the tree and letting our unpacking be our Christmas. After all, we’d most likely forgotten what had been put in those boxes, so it would be just as much a surprise. But eventually, as we settled into the new community, and as my family started attending church with our neighbors the holidays meant gathering with friends who had become our family. For Thanksgiving we hosted many others who also were on their own. One year we had a family that had moved to the area from Germany and we treated them to their first ever Thanksgiving. I remember them at the end of the meal saying that they were “over full”. To which we commended them for celebrating the holiday right. Christmas Eve was the best as Mom would put together an open house for after candlelight service at the church. Most of the neighbors would stop by for some hot wassail and holiday sweets.
Then adult life happens and in that transition from child to adult, you take on more and more responsibility and often times relationships get strained. Those ties from when you were in close proximity to each other sometimes loosen as you spread out geographically. Gathering together becomes less of a joy and treasure and more of an obligation. The to-do list exacts its toll on your consciousness as you think about the million other things you could be doing instead of getting together with people you feel you barely know anymore. Old hurts flash across your mind a certain resistance to going at all creeps up within you. Those wounds, which once seemed bound and healed are suddenly ripped open again at just the thought of breathing the same air with some people. You thought you forgave, but as you bake your third pie of the day you find yourself rehashing that same old argument in your mind all over again and again and again and again.
Relationships are hard. Family is hard. Forgiveness is hard. And thankfulness in the midst of such strive is harder yet. I am a naturally ungrateful person. I am a naturally unforgiving person. I can hold a grudge with the best of them, and I have held many a grudge over the years. In my experience, I find that thankfulness in the midst of grudge holding isn’t just difficult, it’s impossible. Perhaps this is why thankfulness can seem so elusive during this time, ironically when we’re most told to be thankful.
But I sometimes have this ability to see a situation from multiple perspectives. Sometimes, it’s a gift. Other times it greatly inhibits my ability to make a decision or “take a side”. I find it turns me into an extreme moderate politically (and therefore completely unrepresented in this current political climate – but that is a post for another day). In this ability I can look at a situation and I can choose to see the good or I can choose to see the bad. When I am in an ungrateful disposition, however, I see nothing but the bad. My ability to see the good is completely blocked. Therefore, thankfulness is like a superpower that opens my vision to the blessings in every situation, even those that look bleak and hopeless.
It is so important to my mental well-being to cultivate a life of gratitude and to practice thankfulness. It helps keep me from despair. It’s also the will of God. I find myself and others spending much time trying to contemplate the will of God. We think of it as this mystical thing, a path that we need to discern for our lives, but this gem of a passage in 1 Thessalonians makes it quite plain (emphasis added is mine):
“We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” 1 Thessalonians 5:12-18
So what is God’s will for us? Among these other things, to give thanks in all circumstances. It’s quite simple. It’s not easy… far from it, but it’s simple.
So if thankfulness keeps us from despair and is the will of God, how are we to develop a posture of continual gratitude when we’re being slapped around by the whims of the world, with a mountain of work to do, and the expectations of families and loved ones looming over us?
Here is where I hesitate to say what I’m going to say. In fact, I was too anxious to type this out that I just took a chocolate break. True story. The reason I’m hesitant to proceed is because I know that when I’ve been in those moments where I’m hanging on to a thread convinced that there is nothing good in this world left for me, seeing the bad in every situation, magnifying every slight ever made against me, if someone were to say what I’m about to say I would want to punch them. So I’m sorry in advance and I really do not want to sound patronizing, but the best way I have found to develop a thankful heart is to simply take a moment, breathe, pray for God’s help, and start making a list of the things you’re thankful for. I’m sorry. Go ahead and throw something at the screen if you like. I completely understand.
I’ve done this trick many times and it does work. I find there’s usually a couple of obvious items; go ahead and write them down. Then it gets slow but keep working on it. Eventually they start pouring out of you onto the page and you wonder what in the world you were doing being so ungrateful. But it takes time to get there. Start small. Don’t give up.
We try to practice this with our 3-year-old at prayer time at night. I see in her the same ungrateful streak I find in myself and knowing how much better life is in obedience to God operating from a place of continual gratitude, I want to help her develop that. So before we start our night time prayers we list off what we’re thankful for. She always says, “cake and everything!” No, we do not eat cake every day. And then we talk about other things we’re thankful more, more specifically than “everything”, such as the moon, stars, sun, her Mommy & Daddy, etc. I want her to grow up focusing on the things that she does has, recognizing the huge blessings in her life instead of wasting so much time as I did thinking about everything I didn’t have, and how much better off everyone else was. I really want her to learn at 4 what it took me until 40 to get.
I hear you rolling your eyes, and I get it too. She’s 3, her life isn’t that hard. And you’re right. It’s harder to be thankful as an adult. I’ve done the 30 day thankfulness challenge a few times, where you write about what makes you thankful and post it to Facebook every day for a month. And your friends and family read it, and some are really into it and most everyone else scrolls by ignoring what took a momentous effort for you to conjure. You don’t have to do this publicly. In fact, it might be better just between you and the Lord. Try doing this for 30 days to build the habit.
One year I did the 30 day thankfulness challenge, but added a twist that was especially helpful to this ingrate. Instead of just listing out what I was thankful for that day, my husband, my kids, my job, etc. I decided, with the Lord’s help, I would chose a situation from the day that was frustrating or difficult (which is easy to do, because every day there are many to choose from), and then instead of lamenting and complaining about it (which is my default), I decided to find something in that situation to be thankful for, some small nugget of gratitude to wrap my mind around instead of the mental torrent of “poor me” that would typically occupy my cognition. I still look back on those thoughts and am amazed at what resulted. It was truly miraculous the changes that resulted from that exercise. What a fruitful and beautiful discipline is the practice of thanksgiving.
And so in the spirit of practicing what I preach, here is a list of some of the things I have found myself grateful for this year, resulting from the difficulties of these days and those of many years passed.
· I am grateful for my battle with depression as it has taught me humility and reliance on God
· I am grateful for the disagreements and difficulties in marriage as these have brought us closer together and made our relationship that much sweeter
· I am grateful for my struggle with weight and compulsive eating as it has brought wonderful people into my life and caused a necessary focus on my physical health that otherwise might have been horribly neglected. It’s developed a love of exercise, which is another significant part of keeping my mind well.
· I am grateful for anxiety as it reminds me that I am not in control and drives me toward obedience in praying without ceasing.
· I am grateful for the misbehavior of my children as it reminds me of my own sinfulness and folly. I can too easily identify with their struggles and I am reminded of how the Lord has helped me in spite of myself.
· I am grateful for the years I spent in a legalistic church, so I could fully understand and appreciate the freedom of being under grace.
I could go on, but I am eager to go visit my family this afternoon, embracing them, sharing food and laughter as we choose to love each other and be grateful for each other despite our differences and shortcomings (of which mine are surely the greatest). Happy (belated) Thanksgiving. Though Thanksgiving may be over, let gratitude reign in our hearts throughout the holiday season and well into the new year. Let it be our superpower that helps us cut through the disappointments in the years to come.