“Rejoice always,
pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God
in Christ Jesus for you.” I Thess.
5:16-18
In college I
learned (or thought I learned) the lesson of giving thanks for all things. Not just good things, not just things I like,
not just blessings, not just pleasant things, but ALL things. Catherine Marshall's book, Something More, was essential to my ‘education’
as was Corrie Ten Boom, especially her story of being thankful even for the
fleas in the barracks that made their lives miserable.
College was
25 years ago, yet I sit today struggling with being thankful for children
picking on each other, family Bible lessons imploding and ending with a child
in tears, days gone haywire, lessons forgotten or misplaced. If I can’t manage being thankful for
irritations or inconveniences, what in the world would I do with true trials
and tribulations?
I am tempted
when giving thanks for hard things to qualify.
“Thank you, Lord, for my 6 weeks of itching because it has caused me to
cry out to you in a new way.” That may
be true and that may be part of the blessing, but giving thanks in that manner
is limiting because I cannot always see the blessing at the time. I cannot always see God’s goodness in the
moment, yet I am called to give thanks anyway.
In America,
we highlight and promote giving thanks in the month of November. We remind each other to look for the
blessings around us, the blessings we tend to take for granted. I’m going to try to stretch myself and express
thanks to God for the things I normally would beg and plead for Him to fix. I will still ask for help, healing and
hope. But I will thank Him first.
Thank you,
Lord, that my husband is working in San Antonio and we are living in
Dallas.
Thank you,
Lord, for marital miscommunication that makes me cry.
Thank you,
Lord, for the failure and heartache in my children’s lives that I can’t fix.
Thank you,
Lord, for unexplained itching, thyroid dysfunction and panic attacks.
If God is
good, He is good all the time. If I
really believe, I will give thanks for
ALL things, ALL the time.
PS Throughout this year I have been challenged and encouraged on the subject of gratitude by
Ann Voskamp, author of One Thousand Gifts Sometimes the most simple things are the most profound.
