littlebylittlemore

I wrote this as a devotion for a ladies event at my church in November, but I wanted to post it on my blog to share with readers. I wrote it while in the midst of one of the hardest seasons of my life a few months ago. In October, I went in for a pretty routine surgery, and since then I have had problem after problem arise. In these 3 months I have had two surgeries, 5 trips to the ER, one blood clot in my lung take up residence (we named it Claude), lost enough blood to need 4 units of blood be transfused, been on bedrest for over a month, got strep throat and a bladder infection at the same time which consisted of a fever of about 103 for 2 nights while trying to recover from my second surgery, then just as I thought I was finally through it all, my bleeding started up again. Just as one thing started to heal, something else seemed to go wrong. It has been 3 months of pain, frustration, fear, anxiety, and doubt all raging through my body at different times or sometimes all at the same time. I’ve missed family get-togethers, parties and celebrations, bible study- which Im supposed to be leading, school functions for my kids, church, and other important meetings. I haven’t been able to pick up my two year old and snuggle her closely when she reaches her arms up to me to pick her up. I have had to rely on people to not just care for me- but care for my kids and my husband and my pets and my home. I haven’t been able to cook, clean, drive, or really do much of anything for most of these last 3 months! Even though this has been one of the hardest things I have ever gone through, I have never felt more supported, encouraged, and loved. By God’s grace, I have made it this far, and I know He will get me through whatever else comes my way. It is with that intro that I want you to know I do not dare tread into the subject of gratitude or thanksgiving with you all lightly.

**Also, I wrote this right before Thanksgiving, just for context. Just now finally getting it posted here. Guess it’s better late than never. 😉 **

Well, the holidays are upon us. Thanksgiving is next week, and Christmas is only one short month after that. That is so hard for me to believe! Isn’t it interesting that during the holidays we believe and hope that somehow everything stressful, difficult, or awful should take a break? That everyone would take a few weeks to give selflessly, love everyone, and be truly merry. This time of year especially, we long to have all of our loved ones around us healthy and strong, and dare I even add that we hope that we would all enjoy each others’ company? We want to somehow have the house perfect, the meals delectable, the gifts wrapped, and still have time to spare so we can actually enjoy it. We wish that somehow this year we could lose a couple pounds despite all the holiday goodies instead of gaining a few extras. Am I right?
But the holidays aren’t just a time for well-wishing for our families and loved ones. At least not for me. I wish that the economy would just magically bounce back to normal; that no one would be hungry, cold, or lonely; that the ever-deepening trenches of racism, hate, and selfishness tearing our nation apart daily would somehow be restored and permanently mended. That there would be a solution to all the countless other problems we encounter in this broken world like slave trade, overflowing orphanages, pollution, drug addiction, prostitution, cancer, corruption.. the list goes on and on. All these sentiments make for a nice christmas song to listen to and ponder while we drink hot cocoa and watch the snow gently flutter outside our window; but when the inevitable harsh realities of this fallen world begin to start pounding on the front door or calling on the phone or blaring from every news station, we find that the holiday season can be both a season of great hope but also one of great despair. We find that despite all our planning, all our hard work, all our lists and well-wishing- nothing in this broken world is ever going to be perfect.

This is supposed to be the season of thanksgiving, but it is hard to be thankful when the world is in upheaval around us. It’s hard to give thanks when we feel like there isn’t much to be thankful for. In fact, it’s hard to imagine even wanting to or being able to give much of anything when we are so drained emotionally, physically, and financially.

This is supposed to be the season of love, joy, and peace; yet we are often so baffled by the stresses and heart-wrenching trials we or our loved ones are going through, that we instead feel anxious, stressed, and short-tempered. Where is the love after all our striving? Where is the joy in tragedies that happen, yes, even during the holiday season? Where is the peace we so desperately need to help us finally get some sleep or help us make that tough decision?

This brings me to gratitude. Gratitude is the answer to these questions. 
“wait!” you may say.”No way! That is impossible. Gratitude cant possibly be the answer for why we should give even when we are on empty? Gratitude cannot possibly give us peace and joy and love.”
Bear with me, my friends.
So where on earth do we even get gratitude from? Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just pick up a can of gratitude off the shelf at our local King Soopers and serve it up with a grilled chicken breast? The word gratitude itself is defined as “the state of being appreciative”. Gratitude isn’t just acting on whatever appreciation we may feel but actually being the appreciation itself. It is a noun. Which means it is something of substance not something of action. Gratitude isn’t something we do, it’s something we can actually be. It is however the substance that leads to action. That’s the amazing thing about gratitude. Gratitude is what allows us to reach for that thank-you card and write. Gratitude is what prompts us to roll up our sleeves and help a neighbor in need. Gratitude is what helps us care for our children or our aging parents despite the mundanity of the tasks. It is a lot like a muscle. We all possess it. It’s just a matter of whether we actually utilize it or not. And the more we use it, the stronger it gets.

This idea is rooted in scripture. In Matthew 22, the pharisees ask Jesus, “Teacher, what is the greatest command?”… And Jesus told them, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind…and the second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself.” Gratitude is rooted in both the love of God and the love of man. And not only that, but we can see in 1 Thessalonians 5:18 that we are commanded to be thankful. “Give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.”

The Bible has a lot to say about gratitude. And if you were to do a word search for the words: Gratitude, Thanksgiving, Thanks, Thankful, Grateful, then you would find, like I did that there are two men in the Bible who wrote the vast majority of verses on this subject matter. Their names are David and Paul.

Why do you think that is?

Let’s start with David. David was born the youngest brother of several brutish big brothers. He was a shepherd. He was a poet/songwriter. He had times in his life with little and times in his life with great wealth. As a young boy, he had greater faith than an entire army full of grown men- enough so that he took down a monstrous giant with a shout of faith and a little stone from a river. He loved the Lord whole-heartedly and even became known as a man after God’s own heart. And David was no stranger to real fear, pain, and sin. As a shepherd, he had to face down predators that would try to take down his flock. Later in life, he had the King of Israel on his tail trying to hunt him down and murder him (because the king knew David was destined to be the next king of God’s people). Sure enough. David did become king of Israel. And out of his absolute human-infused lust and sin, he did something unthinkable. He had an affair with a bathing beauty and had her honorable husband murdered to try to cover it up. David knew real earthly fear, but he knew a fear even more terrifying- the fear of what the consequences were for his sinful life- an eternity without God’s mercy or presence. He knew there is nothing worse. So David repented and pleaded with God to forgive him, which the Lord lavishly did time and time again.

Here are some excerpts from some of David’s writings on gratitude and thanksgiving:
“Oh give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name; make known His deeds among the peoples.” 1 Chronicles 16:8
“I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart, I will recount of His wonderful deeds” Ps9
“The Lord is my strength and my shield.. my heart exults with my song and I give thanks to Him” Ps28
“O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth? You have shown your glory above the heavens!” Ps 8
“Give thanks to the Lord for He is good. His steadfast love endures forever!”PS107

So what can we learn about gratitude from David? He sure seems to be knowledgeable. He gives us a picture of someone who let gratitude rule in his heart, but what was he grateful for? When you read many of his songs it becomes clear that he was inspired to gratitude by just about everything: the beauty of the world around him, the stories of the Lord’s faithfulness to the Israelite people over and over in the past, the sound of instruments or the feel of the sun on his face. But what inspired him most, was the lavish grace and steadfast love of God. One of my favorite quotes from a Bible study I’ve been going through this fall with some of you ladies says,” David wasn’t a man after God’s own heart because he didn’t sin. He was a man after God’s own heart because he kept coming back to God.” He kept coming back to God. That, my darling friends, is where we too can find gratitude as well. Keep going back to God- to His Word, to worship, to prayer.
David went back to God no matter what he was going through: in great joy or triumph, seasons of peace (ps 23), times of fear or anxiety, with shame from sin, grief from loss, and with repentance. And as a result of that relationship with our Holy Lord, he was so full of gratitude that he would leak songs of thanksgiving and prayers of thanks all around him. We too can have this heart of gratitude. We too can come to God readily with all our souls’ burdens and delights, and He will give us a new song to sing. A song of gratitude! In fact, that’s exactly what David wrote in Psalm 40:3, “He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.”
Then there is Paul. The ever-inspiring apostle Paul. Paul actually started out as an incredibly well-educated and highly favored Jewish Pharisee named Saul that was a zealot for the law. So much so, that he actually held fellow zealous lovers of the laws’ jackets for them so they could better stone a Christian deemed a heretic named Stephen to death. Saul’s greatest “godly” drive and ambition was to rid the population of Christian fanatics that were blaspheming. He asked the high priest for warrants of arrest so that he could imprison any Christian- man or woman-that he encountered on his journey to Jerusalem. On his way, he came to a city called Damascus where he had an encounter with the Lord that forever changed his life.So the man who judged spiritual value and merit with his own eyes, found himself suddenly blind for three days- alone with his darkness. Alone with his thoughts. The audible voice of Jesus echoing in his ears, “Saul, why are you persecuting me? Who am I? I AM Jesus.” Saul’s eyes were literally opened to see that Jesus truly was the Messiah, and that he had been persecuting true followers of the One living and holy God. He repented and completely dedicated his life to serving the Lord. So much so that he changed his name to Paul- a name better related to by the Gentiles. He went on 3 missionary journeys and committed his life to telling whoever he could about the truth of the Gospel. Paul wrote a large portion of the books in the New Testament, and gratitude was a subject he had much to say about. But it wasn’t because his life as a Christ-follower was easy, it was quite the opposite. He says in 2 Cor.11:24-28 “Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the gforty lashes less one. 25 Three times I was hbeaten with rods. iOnce I was stoned. Three times I jwas shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; 26 on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, kdanger from my own people, ldanger from Gentiles, mdanger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; 27 nin toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, oin hunger and thirst, often without food,2 in cold and exposure. 28 And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for pall the churches.

Paul went from being a man greatly respected and feared to a man beaten and imprisoned? And all for what?

Philippians 3:8-11 “ Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.”

After all his suffering and persecution, he still counted it as a gain to know Christ and to be persecuted for the sake of His name. And despite all his hardships, he still wrote more out of a heart of thanksgiving and gratitude than just about any other writer in the Bible.

What was he grateful for when he was in prison, cold, starving, injured beyond belief, and alone? We know because he wrote about it in his letters we read in the New Testament.
He was thankful for fellow believers and their encouragement
He was thankful for the Word of God, which comforted him immensely and was a way for him to remember the truth about God’s character
*What he was most thankful for!* His salvation in Christ alone.

Romans 3:23-24
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

Dear friends, this is what Christians call the Gospel. And out of the same conviction and gratitude that David felt when confronted with his affair and commitment of murder and that Paul experienced on that dusty road in Damascus by the risen Christ, so also should we confess and repent of sin and believe that Jesus is Lord. We must surrender our own rebellion just like both David and Paul did. All true and enduring gratitude must ultimately be rooted in the fertile truth of the Gospel.

Regardless of what season it is, we know that we will face trials, troubles, and problems that come in all shapes and sizes. Right? It is our response that matters the most. Will we waste time panicking and festering in our miserable stress or will we remember to turn our focus off of the chaos and trouble and call out to our God who is indeed with us. Just as with us as He was with David and Paul. And just as he has been with me. Through every trial, any situation- He is able to break our bonds, satisfy our weary souls, and calm our every fear.

It grows our faith to trust God with these trials. But it also is what allows our hearts to feel true gratitude even in the midst of the hardest things we face.
I’ve come up with a little acronym to go with the word Gratitude with some helpful hints to remind us how to practice and grow in gratitude in all circumstances.
Go back to God like David did- this is called repentance.(0r come to him for the first time). The only lasting gratitude is found through salvation in Christ alone. All the tricks in the book, wont work like the true knowledge of salvation.
Read and Memorize Bible verses on gratitude and thanksgiving
Appreciate what you have. Not what you want. This is HUGE!!
Thank you’s: say it and write it daily
Ink to paper: keep a journal of Gratitude. Blessings are everywhere. Start with the simplest or smallest at first and then keep adding to it. (Give example of bedrest thoughts, warm blanket)
Time to rest: spent away from malls, tv, iPhones, social media ect.
Utilize resources available to you (people, technology, location) for help
Down on your knees- Pray for the Lord to make you more grateful
Enjoy life more- despite some of the most crushing of circumstances… sometimes the best thing you can do is sit in the sun with a cup of tea. Or get out for a walk. Or paint your toes.

So as the hustle and bustle of the holiday season begins next week, remember to take time truly exercise putting on the attitude of gratitude. Remember how wonderful of an opportunity the holidays are for us to be a living example of hope to our family, and to remind ourselves of the wonderful blessings we truly have all around us. As the wonderful aroma of delicious baking fills your home or the holiday music plays melodically through the air, take time to thank God for the incredible gift it is to taste and smell and hear. Call out to God to help you through the chaos that comes. Remind yourself of the things you can be thankful for and that God will use even the most challenging of circumstances to draw us closer to himself and reveal himself better to us for his glory. God’s word promises that as we grow in gratitude, we will grow in peace, character, and hope. And also as we grow in gratitude, it increases the faith of others and helps strengthen their gratitude as well.

Let me end by reading this verse to you. This verse has been one that has given me purpose and hope in the midst of my struggles the last 6 weeks. It has helped me to be grateful even when it has seemed impossible. The generosity of others has been one of the greatest gifts to help me look past my own suffering and to have something to be thankful for. 2 Cor 4:15-18 15 For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. 16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

Happy Thanksgiving! Praise God for His goodness to us!