My 8-year-old came to me in tears one afternoon last week, asked for a hug, and said, “I am so confused.” Then he proceeded to sob so hard that I couldn’t understand what he was saying. I thought maybe he had been fighting with his brother – that’s the safe bet anytime there are tears.
After a few minutes of soothing him I finally got to the bottom of it. Sort of. It’s this awful Covid virus that refuses to go away or play nice. The same child made a new Christmas list the other day and the only thing he asked for was for Covid to go away. Then we found out that thanks to Covid our traditional Thanksgiving plans were cancelled. This is only the second time in my 44 years that I will miss it. I was out of the country and missed it one time previously. But it was my choice.
I guess it’s just too much for a child who isn’t fully equipped to handle so much stress and strain. I mean most of the adults I know are near the edge of coming unglued. I’m 1,000 percent weary of it all myself. I hate seeing so many people who seem so broken from the weight of it. I wish I had some surefire answers that would make us all feel better and maybe even take some confusion away. Spoiler alert – I don’t.
I’m processing much of the same disappointment, uncertainty, and palpable tension as everyone else. It hurts my heart, and the fixer in me desperately wants to make it better. I do have one seed of a thought for each of us this Thanksgiving week. Gratitude. I mean gratitude not thankfulness.
Thankfulness is a feeling. And I don’t know about you but I’m not feeling it right now. It’s hard to feel thankful when my child is so upset. It’s hard to feel thankful when so many of my family, friends and community are hurting. It’s hard to feel thankful when life simply cannot proceed the way we want it to. When everything is just so unfair and so difficult.
Gratitude, though, is more of an action, a deeper sense of appreciation. I am thankful that I have food to eat, but I am grateful that I have people I love enough to miss this year. I am grateful for people who risk their lives to make sure there is food on a grocery shelf for me to buy. It’s something I choose not something I feel. Sometimes we must work really hard to find it and choose it.
Friends here is what I am profoundly grateful for in this year of our Lord 2020. I’m grateful that God is still good. Even in our disappointments, our losses, our hurts, and our confusion, He is still good. Even in the middle of what feels like a never-ending, life-sucking, pot-stirring pandemic, God is still good.
In Psalm 136:1 we read, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.”
Because He is good and steadfast. Steadfast means unwavering. God is unwavering. His plans have not changed just because ours have. He is not confused because we are confused. He is not tired because we are tired. He has not given up. He is not taking a break. He has not abandoned us. He is still good even when life is not. This we can count on.
For this we should be grateful. It should pour out of our mouths and actions at every turn. We were never promised easy. We were promised trials and suffering. We were promised that God would not leave us during them. He hasn’t. This is the place – this Thanksgiving – where we need to tie the knot in our gratitude rope and hang on.
This Thanksgiving we could spend all our time being sad about the gatherings we’re not having and the life we’re not living or being angry about the normal that has been stolen. Take a minute and acknowledge those feelings, but then let’s choose a different approach.
Let’s be grateful for the paired down gatherings with our closest people and love them extra. Let’s be grateful for our relative safety and take some time to rest our minds. Let’s be grateful for the hope we have in Christ and reflect on what that means. Let’s be grateful that God is still good no matter what. No. Matter. What.
This Thanksgiving let’s choose gratitude.
Comments
I’m with you. I’ll choose gratitude!