How can I live a life of thanksgiving when I’m hurting deeply?
Lately I’ve been watching fall football with my husband, and no doubt around this time every year, commercials with luxurious cars driving through snowy mountains stir something inside me.
A little girl with big bright eyes peers out her window and sees all the twinkling lights. Santa is coming. Snow is falling. And she and her perfect family are savoring the season driving in the car of their dreams. I begin to feel like that little girl too.
A new Lexus wrapped in a giant red bow sounds pretty good at the end of the year. I may even feel like I “need” a new 2019 Range Rover fully loaded with leather seats and a sunroof that extends to the back seats.
Marketing geniuses know how to tap into our longings for “more.” They’ve done their homework. They give us all the “feels” and stir our senses for what’s beautiful, nostalgic, functional and trendy, making us think we’ll be happier.
We know the truth though. No material possession can fully satisfy our longings. In 2030, the 2019 cars will be old. There will be newer, better and more technologically advanced toys by then.
A life of thanks
As I think about gratitude this Thanksgiving (instead of Christmas and pretty cars!), I’m trying not to look so hard at what I don’t have and instead think deeply on all I’ve been given. Because this is the heart of God. This is what he desires for my life — to be content with what he’s already given me.
To live in such a way that my life spills over with Thanksgiving every day there’s breath in my lungs — not just on Thursday when we gather around the table with our loved ones.
But the truth is, it’s hard to give thanks when life hurts. In suffering, I can give thanks to you, God? In loneliness I can thank you? In an unexpected diagnosis I can praise you? In conflict? Hurt and pain? When someone wounds me with their words? Even in confusion and times of chaos? Even when I believe something has been taken from me?
Take a look at what Jesus did in the upper room with his disciples:
“While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take and eat; this is my body.’ Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.’” (Luke 22:26-28).
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