Deeper Gratitude
After my last blog I had a friend mention that I should infuse more of my humor into my writing. Let me just take this moment to warn you that I have failed at that today.
We’ve experienced a great deal of loss over the last year or so. And here we are in November, when everyone is talking about being thankful. As I think about gathering around the Thanksgiving table and the things I should be thankful for, I cannot separate my gratitude from loss. One of my closest friends is 6 months into a separation from a husband who chose to walk away from her, his church family, his friends, and ultimately- God. How is she supposed to be thankful? My sister is 2 months into the grief of losing the daughter she’s always wanted to the original birth mother after nurturing her for a year. How do you thank God after that? Another close friend continues to miscarry and wonders if her home, her car, her memories will ever hold more children- all while watching her sister-in-law lose an infant at birth. How do you act thankful and normal at Thanksgiving dinner with that kind of heartache? My church is struggling as family after family after family leaves for their own reasons and we wonder what God is doing. There is more loss than I can process and I’m at the point now where, when another loss happens, I just want to go numb. I want to run. I want to escape.
It all started 18 months ago when my friend Stephanie pulled the trigger and took her own life. Our little church was shocked, stunned, and rocked by the loss of a wife and mother of four young girls. So a core group of my friends and I determined to grow and to find God in the insanity. We have sensed God’s presence and comfort as we’ve learned to walk through the first year of loss by suicide. We even said “next year has GOT to be better than this one.” And then, the next year came with its’ life changing betrayals. Sin and darkness seem contagious and fester, causing grief that begets more grief that begets more grief. People sometimes choose to run from God in the face of loss and heartache instead of to Him. It can be like a domino effect as I’ve watched sinful choices affect more than just the person who made them. Sometimes I just shake my head at what has transpired over the past year and a half.
But here’s the thing; I feel older. I feel wiser. And I feel more grateful.
I’m grateful not just for the food on my plate or my warm home. Not for my faithful husband or healthy, beautiful children or my mental health. For if that were the case then I would cease being a grateful creature were those things taken from me. This year I am thankful for the loss and grief that has caused me to loosen my grip on this world. As Jon Piper said- “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”
This year I am thankful because in the midst of it all, God has given me a deeper sense of Himself. I know His faithful love and provision like never before. I want Him more. I want the things of this world less. I literally have lost my appetite for many of them. And I wouldn’t be in this place were it not for all the valleys of the last 18 months.
You see, pits are deep for a reason. In every pit, there is a deeper knowledge of Christ. Even a deeper peace and joy if you are willing to face the pain, to stay in the pain, to work through the pain until He leads you out- as my sister and 2 friends are so bravely doing. I’m thankful that with every loss, there is a greater opportunity to receive spiritual riches, to know Jesus more deeply. “For it has been granted to us, on behalf of Christ to suffer for Him.” Later in the same letter Paul talks about the fellowship of His suffering . . . being his partner because you have suffered.
I have watched my friends struggle and suffer and become stronger women than anyone could imagine because Abba has been their strength. Their faith is storing up treasures in heaven, which cannot be destroyed. You see we are all richer than we can possibly imagine or understand. We have the love of the Creator of the universe. Whatever tragedies or mistakes we face, He can redeem and turn into something beautiful. If we choose, we can stare grief and loss in the face and truly BELIEVE that God will carry us through it to a more joyful place.
“He has turned my mourning into dancing.” – So, I promise more jovial blogs to follow.. . .
In Philippians 3:8
I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ..
