The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; to the one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God. Psalm 50:23
It was the last thing on my list. To give thanks for the pain. Who wants to do that? How do you say thank you for a gift you never wanted in the first place? How do you express gratitude when the agony is overwhelming? As a friend always tells me, “You fake it til you make it.” Do it anyways regardless of how you feel, and eventually the feeling will follow. And is that not what a “sacrifice of praise” is? Thanking Him when you want to do anything but show gratitude.
Three years ago, I didn’t want to thank Him. I was in too much pain, but I knew after four years of keeping a gratitude journal that I couldn’t stop. I needed to express my thanks even in the extreme heartache. Amazingly, as the weeks went slowly by I learned that I had to thank Him. I couldn’t survive without the gratitude. To stop would be to sink under a sea of devastation. So I kept counting those graces He had given…even counting the “griefs as graces”. In the end, the feelings followed. I am so thankful for what He has allowed in my life even the hard parts. I have learned that one of the ways we can muddle through grief is to tackle it with gratitude. Here’s a look at what I’ve learned…
Gratitude in hurt is a sacrifice. God calls it a “sacrifice of praise”..a totally accurate description of what we must do to count “griefs as graces”. It’s not easy. It takes practice. It goes against every human inclination. We don’t naturally do gratitude, and then to heap pain on top of it makes it even worse. The sacrifice though is worth it. God knew that gratitude relieves pain and has the potential to bring healing.
Gratitude reframes the pain. Being thankful helps us to see our life situations with another set of eyes. Pain with purpose is a good thing in that we grow and become more like Him. By listing God’s gifts we get to use His eyes to see our lives. It reframes what we thought was terrible into something of bittersweet beauty. By listing the good that was coming out of my pain, I can now see how God was growing me, how He was benefiting my family, how He was blessing us.
Gratitude gives hope. In order to heal, you need hope. Hope that life will not always be this dismal. Hope that we will come to a place of peace after we have worked through the grief. Without hope, the road to recovery becomes longer and harder. There really is no reason to work through the pain without a “carrot of hope” dangling before us. Gratitude creates hope by showing us that there is beauty that comes out of the ugly and that there is always something to be thankful for. It pinpoints how pain can serve a purpose in our lives and benefit us in the long run.
Gratitude allows space to move forward. By being thankful we release the pain. We say to God, “I accept that You have given me this.” It is in the acceptance that there is healing. Acceptance allows us to move forward not haunted by our past. I finally found peace when I could truly thank Him for what had happen. I didn’t have to fight anymore what He has brought into my life. By laying down my “weapons” of regret, anger, and sadness and exchanging them for gratefulness, I finally could live life unburdened.
Debbie lives in central Alaska with her husband and two sons. She loves to read, write, and spend time with loved ones. She homeschools her youngest and runs an in-home business offering Spanish lessons to other homeschoolers. She blogs about faith at The Architect and the Artist and about teaching Spanish at Debbie’s Spanish Learning.
Cultivate
How has God changed your heart through the painful seasons of life? How has gratitude impacted the storms of life?
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Yes it is hard to express gratitude in hard seasons, but I was thankful for the doctors, nurses and counselors during my son’s psychotic breaks and I am thankful that his meds work, and that he takes them every single day even though there are a lot of them. So I remain grateful and thankful – thanks for this reminder