Since starting my Gratitude List, I have found things to be thankful for that I would never have otherwise thought of. For instance, the dozens and dozens of steps leading from the base of the waterfall to the top of the waterfall at South Mountain where I try to hike at least once a week. I found that I am thankful for these steps because they have been a major benefit in my quest to lose weight and be healthier.
When I first started my hiking, I would only venture to the base of the waterfall and turn back. After two or three hikes, Richard encouraged me up those steps and I ended up not just on top of the waterfall, but I felt on top of the world as well. It was a real struggle. It is still a bit of a struggle to get up all those steps, but it is so much easier now and is now just "part of the hike" rather than an extra added push. Those steps represent victory!
Yesterday morning on my drive to work, I was thankful for the strange and awesome beauty of the gathering storm clouds. The clouds portend heavy rain, flooding, lightning and even tornadoes. They speak of the possibility of coming destruction, and yet at this beginning edge of the storm, I still see beauty that tells of the power and might of God and the timelessness of creation.
I am beginning a difficult chapter in the book One Thousand Gifts. It is about giving thanks for the hardest things in life that we must bear. Sometimes we find ways to do that after the fact. We find God working in our lives and we see our spiritual development and the wonderful ways that tragedy brings people together. But how can we thank God for these things in the midst of it all... or for that matter, when we are sitting at the edge of the storm and see it coming?
A quote from a customer review of this book on Amazon.com:
Angie Smith, at a recent conference said (paraphrased) about the loss of her infant daughter , Audrey Caroline, "for all that her death has brought me...the understanding of God, the opportunities to comfort others and show them God's grace...I would still rather have Audrey." And my heart nods in agreement.I know a few families that would shout an "Amen" to that. Sometimes the storm is so great we wish we could just go back in time and erase the whole thing from happening at all... no matter the blessings that come from it eventually. How do we thank God for these things? Is it even possible? But if we can... if we can possibly get to that level of gratitude... or as Ann Voskamp calls it, "eucharisteo"... we will find complete joy. Ah, but we know "complete joy" is unattainable on earth. I think it is this hard thanksgiving that makes complete joy unattainable in the here and now.
How often I have seen in emails or heard in sharing when people have talked of fearful things turning out good. The biopsy is clear. The fever subsided. The job came through. The marriage was reconciled. The possibly tragic accident was avoided. And people respond: "God is good!" or "Praise the Lord!" And I can't help but think about the biopsies that were filled with cancer; the fevers that ended in death; the jobs denied; the divorces that happen; the people who die in accidents everyday. Does that mean in those cases God is NOT good or that God is NOT worthy of our praise?
Ann says it so much better than I can:
What is good? What counts as grace? What is the heart of God? Do I believe in a God who rouses Himself just now and then to spill a bit of benevolence on hemorrhaging humanity? A God who breaks through the carapace of this orb only now and then, surprises us with a spared hand, a reprieve from sickness, a good job and a nice house in the burbs—and then finds Himself again too impotent to deal with all I see as suffering and evil? A God of sporadic, random, splattering goodness—that now and then splatters across a gratitude journal? Somebody tell me: What are all the other moments?
Voskamp, Ann (2010). One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are (pp. 85-86). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
Perhaps we can start with being thankful for the stuff we see as good. Maybe with practice we will be able to "Praise Him In the Storm." But I doubt that on this side of eternity we will be able to really be thankful in our hearts when we are trembling at the approach of a violent storm. It is just human nature to want to run to our beds to hide under the covers. But once we see that God will stay with us and we see him at work in our own lives and in the world around us, we will give thanks... even if we would still rather have things they way they were before.
Dear Lord,
Let our hearts know you are indeed good "all the time" and let our souls praise and magnify you after the storm, within the storm and even as we see the storm clouds gather. Amen.
Joys: Cold water to drink; Rain pouring down hard; grasshoppers and dragonflies enlivened at my footstep
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