With Thanksgiving falling at the end of the month, a number of Facebook people have apparently decided that during November they would write daily posts about the things for which they are thankful, to the disgust of some who see this as an affront to those whose lives may be less than satisfactory. I've read their complaints that those who write about their blessings are merely bragging about what they have. At first glance this may seem little more than Scrooge's "Bah! Humbug!" making a seasonally early entrance on the stage, and it may be little more than our human tendency, seen too often, of using the anonymity of social media to criticize and complain without fear of reprisal. On the other hand, there is some legitimacy in this complaint. It would seem easy for those less fortunate in life and love to read of someone else's happiness only to note by comparison their own relative misery.
And yet...
When I began my gratitude journal nearly three years ago, it was not with the intent of making anyone less fortunate feel bad, but instead was a desperate attempt to free myself of a nagging melancholy that had dogged my steps for as long as I can remember. In a sense, I had to do this to save my own soul. I hadn't known that there was a cure for this spiritual disease from which I suffered until the day someone told me to start giving thanks, no matter what. Looking back, it still amazes me how I managed to miss this for all these years. After all, it's plainly written in Scripture: "In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." The command to give thanks is woven into the very fabric of God's Word, and if you look, you find that the practice of gratitude is woven into the fabric of life itself. How could I have been so blind as to have missed this for so many years?
Just the other day I read from my devotional the following words: "Do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as thought something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings..." (1 Peter 4:12). The folks complaining about the November posts about thankfulness have a point. Gratitude isn't something you do when things are going your way. It is a way of seeing life itself-the good, the bad, and the ugly-that transforms it by seeing it all as a gift from the hand of a loving God. When I write about the situations of life that no longer throw me under the bus of depression, I know that these irritations that used to drag me through the mud are just that-irritations that are the proving grounds for greater trials that may come. By seeing them in a different light, they aren't transformed. I am. And for that I am truly and deeply thankful.
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