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Practice Gratitude
FOR THE RUBBLE, NOT JUST THE RUBIES
It’s only with gratitude that life becomes rich.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
1 Thessalonians 5:16–18
Our first Thanksgiving in America was a joke. As Brits we had absolutely no idea what to do. It was pitiful. Should we go away or stay home? What about turkey? Good grief, no. If you’re from my side of the pond, turkey is for Christmas, and I didn’t want to wrestle a big bird twice in two months. All our new friends were with their families, so we were flying solo on this one, and without a road map carved from years of family traditions we were lost. What should we do? What should we eat? What on earth is sweet potato pie? And would someone, for the love of the game, please explain a third down and why they don’t pass backwards like they do in rugby back home?
Our kids had learned the story of the first Thanksgiving at school, and we could see what a beautiful time of gratitude and family gathering it was to our friends, so in the end we rented a cabin in the mountains and I bought an oversized chicken potpie from Costco. I know, not exactly your traditional Thanksgiving fare. But we’d had a crazy year: three moves (one internationally), three kids in two new schools (where they were constantly asked to “say something British” or “speak like Harry Potter”), along with the birthing pains of planting CityChurch and the ache of leaving home. We needed a break.
We also needed a bit of refocusing.
Giving thanks would be a good thing. The last year had been exhausting and at times painful, but we still had much to be grateful for. Wherever we looked we could see God’s goodness, but we were long overdue with our gratitude.
We headed to the North Carolina mountains to begin our own Thanksgiving traditions of talent shows, chicken potpie, long hikes, playing sardines in the dark, and lazy days. We gave thanks for the good and ignored the rest.
Thanksgiving: A Holiday or a Lifestyle?
Ignored the rest. Did I really type that? Oh dear. The Bible tells us over eighty times to be “grateful,” “give thanks,” or do things “with thanksgiving.” Psychologists tell us gratitude increases not just our well-being but also our happiness, optimism, connection, and empathy, and it reduces aggression.1 If being grateful is so darn good for me, why don’t I live in a constant state of gratitude? Why do I struggle to give thanks at all? Perhaps (and I’m ashamed to say this) because when things are good I get caught up in life and forget to give thanks, and when things are bad I get sucked into the suckiness of it all and it’s hard to see anything worthy of my thanks. (Worthy? Really? Did I type that as well?)
All those benefits of gratitude that psychologists have discovered—empathy, connection, optimism (hope), and happiness—aren’t they what God’s abundant, full life looks like? If that’s true (and I think it is), then if we want to breathe him in, we must somehow learn to be grateful whether our days are bright and breezy or darkened by storm clouds. We can’t wait until the pages of our lives reflect the happily ever after we’ve ordered. We can’t look down our noses at the lives we’re living, only deigning to give thanks when something’s worthy of our approval.
I’ll admit, as I struggled with cancer and dealt with my anger and grief from losing Mum and Jo, my underwhelmed faith and overwhelmed heart were as predisposed to thanksgiving as a teenager is to spontaneously tidying their room. Despite being commanded to give thanks, and in spite of the tangible benefits of doing so, I looked around me and saw a father who’d lost his daughter, two sisters where once there were three, children afraid their mum might die, a strong man of faith challenged by his wife’s suffering, and a bag of poop on my belly where my children once snuggled. It wasn’t always easy to see anything worth bursting into spontaneous cries of gratitude for. It’s as if cancer had given me polarized glasses filtering out any beauty and light.
Being grateful in every situation—good, bad, or ugly—requires a gratitude mind-set, not just grateful moments. If we can turn gratitude from an individual thought into a way of thinking, giving thanks in all things at all times, we can live a full life and not just full moments.
The Give Thanks in All Things Game
I think my next book might be titled Flying with Small Children: A Survival Guide for Mums. You name it, we’ve done it: delays, cancellations, rerouting in midair, terrifying turbulence, lost luggage, nights on airport chairs, overflowing motion sickness bags, and angry fellow passengers. Been there, done that, and got the air miles to prove it.
After one particularly bad flight, while we waited at the back of a never-ending “re-ticketing because your delayed flight has now been canceled completely” line, we invented the Give Thanks in All Things Game. Less about true gratitude and more about stopping the kids’ moaning, we explained the aim of the game in overly chirpy “let’s prevent meltdown” voices: God tells us to give thanks in all things, including flight delays and I-want-to-go-home moments, so let’s see how many things we find to be thankful for and say why we’re grateful. Escalators made the top of the list (for their leg-saving genius), followed by the sweet lady who lent Sophie her pillow to sleep on the floor (sleep is always a good thing). But also making the list were the canceled flight itself (seeing people be kind when life isn’t) and being at the back of the queue (time to grab a Starbucks snack).
It worked. The whining stopped. To this day we still play the Give Thanks in All Things Game, and we’re working on making it a way of life not just a game in life.
When doctors sliced me open, rerouted my God-given plumbing, and left me wondering if this was it, I tried to play the game despite my feelings. Once again it was less about gratitude and more about trying to exchange my whining for God’s whispers. I knew he commands us to give thanks and to do it in all circumstances, even in the stench of a leaking ostomy bag, so I tried. I looked around and started naming things I was grateful for.
Top of my list was “not dying.” A bit melodramatic, I know, but it wasn’t guaranteed and I was grateful to still be breathing. But apart from that I struggled. True, I hadn’t popped my clogs, Al hadn’t run off with my disarmingly stunning nurse, and my kids weren’t snorting cocaine behind the bleachers (yet), but I didn’t feel grateful. I was mid-chemo for a tumor in an unmentionable orifice, I’d just lost my big sister to cancer in the ugliest of battles, I worried my bag of poop would pop if I was hugged too tight, nausea and neuropathy followed me around like boy-band groupies, and my kids had to live with the fear their mum might be sipping tea in heaven’s tea shop sometime soon. What was there to be grateful for?
Then I remembered Corrie ten Boom’s story. She and her sister Betsie were imprisoned in a concentration camp during World War II for their role in the Dutch Resistance. Crammed into barracks, hungry, freezing, exhausted, and with her sister getting sicker by the day, Corrie agreed to “give thanks in all things” as a way to endure their time there. When Betsie, always more serene and spiritual than the impetuous Corrie, gave thanks for the fleas biting their legs and scalps, Corrie couldn’t believe it.
“Betsie, there’s no way even God can make me grateful for a flea.”
“‘Give thanks in all circumstances,’” she quoted. “It doesn’t say, ‘in pleasant circumstances.’ Fleas are part of this place where God has put us.”
And so we stood between piers of bunks and gave thanks for fleas. But this time I was sure Betsie was wrong.2
Over the weeks the women held worship services at the back of their cramped quarters and lived in fear the guards would come in and see what they were doing, but they never did. Then they found out why—the guards wouldn’t enter the barracks because of the fleas. Corrie continues: “My mind rushed back to our first hour in this place. I remembered Betsie’s bowed head, remembered her thanks to God for creatures I could see no use for.”3
Just as Corrie ten Boom could see no use for the fleas, I could see no use for my cancer, and like her I didn’t want to give thanks for any part of it. But I was commanded to.
“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thess. 5:16–18). Always. Continually. All. I guess I didn’t have a choice. Not only was it a command but it was, and is, God’s will for my life. And since his will is good, pleasing, and perfect (Rom. 12:2), I had to believe somehow it was best for me. So I did, finally, bit by stubborn bit. As an act of obedience I began to give thanks for the whole lot. The poop bag, the leaks, the chemo. Even the fragility of my life. I began to develop an attitude of gratitude by stepping into life with intention despite my circumstances. Then and only then did the gratitude needle begin to shift from, as Bekah Pogue says, holiday to lifestyle, from game to habit.4
A Command with a Promise
Expressing gratitude for the tough and broken as well as the shiny and whole began ever so slowly to shift my gaze. When I gave thanks for my ostomy bag it morphed from a farting, leaking bulge on my midriff to a life-giving medical miracle allowing me to heal and poop at the same time—even while worshiping in church. The nausea became proof the chemo was fighting any cancer cells that had escaped to other parts of my body. With gratitude, the worry on my children’s faces opened doors for extra hugs and deep conversations we’d never ventured into before.
Fresh life grew from those small acts of obedient thanksgiving.
The quieting of the pain that demands our attention, the bubbling up of storm-calming goodness, the refocusing from what brings us pain to what fills us up—aren’t these God’s promises? They’re the promises Paul talked about when he told us to come to God in thanksgiving: “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:7).
I wanted more than anything for everything bad and painful to disappear. I wanted to pull the emergency handle on the cancer train and get off and stop feeling so crappy, but that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. I found practicing gratitude didn’t lessen the pain but magnified the beauty and wrapped everything in a calming peace. I didn’t stop feeling nauseous or worried, but instead my capacity to feel happy, peaceful, and optimistic grew.
Little did I know I was living proof of all that positive psychology research showing how gratefulness enhances our well-being. In her Forbes article, Amy Morin lists seven proven benefits of gratitude.5 As I read them, I see God’s promises from 1 Thessalonians 5:18 in the hard data: better sleep, improved physical and psychological health, increased mental strength and self-esteem. Gratitude even increases empathy and reduces aggression, which I know my family was grateful for in their chemo-induced snarky mother. Whether it’s Vietnam veterans, survivors of 9/11, or regular folks going about their daily lives, research shows time and again that gratitude has a profound effect on our well-being—or as the Bible calls it, “abundance.”
Often we’re brought up to believe God is all about rules and regulations, barking “do,” “don’t,” and “you’d better not or else” with the controlling harshness of a drill sergeant. We couldn’t be more wrong. That’s not who he is. His voice brims with love and longing. His “no” is never bellowed to control us or ruin our happiness but uttered with the pleading tenderness of a father’s aching heart. My dear sweet child, don’t. You’ll get hurt, which is the last thing I want for you. It would break my heart because I love you.
What if we saw his command to give thanks not as a controlling, guilt-inducing order to fill his ego but as a loving plea from the One who knows what’s best for us? Live gratefully, my child, because when you do, all these promises are yours, and I so want you to experience all I have for you.
We can practice a lifestyle of gratitude because God tells us to and because when we do he promises to pour out blessings. He turns our gratitude into goodness, adds peace to our pain, and provides strength in our struggles. God commands us not as a manipulative bully but as a loving Father whose will is good and always comes with his promise of peace.
Just ask a psychologist if you need any more proof. We don’t need to see things differently to be grateful; rather, we must be grateful to see things differently. And when we do, when we see it all and give thanks for it all at all times, “Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life” (Phil. 4:7 MSG).
The Gratitude of No Ordinary Teenager
Outwardly, Mary seemed like a normal teenager—nothing to write home about. Like most girls her age, she was already betrothed and had her life mapped out in front of her: marry the carpenter Joseph, have a few kids, and live happily ever after while honoring and trusting God. She was no different from any of her girlfriends, until a tall, dark, and handsome angel made a heavenly appearance in her living room. (Okay, so there’s no biblical evidence Gabriel is George Clooney with wings, but can’t a girl imagine?)
Gabriel throws an almighty curveball at Mary’s nice calm, planned-out life, sending it completely off course. Before this encounter her life wasn’t exactly to die for, but being chosen to be the unwed mother of the Messiah was no upgrade. She knew all too well what it meant: as an unmarried, pregnant teenager, she faced divorce and possibly death. Her good Jewish parents—along with the rest of her community—would tear their clothes, mortified, then disown and shun her. In a nutshell, Gabriel’s news shattered Mary’s world.
I just love Mary. On the one hand she is so human and relatable, and on the other she’s a spiritual marvel—the woman I want to be when I grow up. This shattering knocks her for six, but after she questions her heavenly messenger about a few practical details and takes a moment to think, she’s all in (Luke 1:26–38).
I wonder if she knew what she was getting into or if Gabriel’s heavenly presence and (I imagine) piercing blue eyes worked some heavenly spell. What happened when the light faded and his heavenly glow was just a memory? Did she question it as a moment of hormonal madness? Did she panic at the thought of what could lie ahead? We’ll never know.
Another mystery is why Mary hurried to her cousin Elizabeth’s house. I wonder if she made the ninety-mile trek through the hill country between Nazareth and Judea feeling more and more anxious, her heart at sixes and sevens with what she’d agreed to. While it’s likely she was among a caravan of travelers, she would have been alone with her thoughts and her worsening morning sickness.
We don’t know what she thought as she made this journey, but we do know the first thing she did once Elizabeth greeted her: she praised God and gave thanks. This teenage unwed mother, in danger of divorce and possible death, gave thanks for her God and how he had looked with favor on her (Luke 1:46–49).
Favor? Really?
From the outside looking in, gratefully calling herself favored sounds like utter madness; but from the inside looking out it makes perfect sense. Mary knew this shattering was for her good and for the good of all people, and thanksgiving was the way to finding life within it.
Gratitude: An Action, Not a Feeling
Two months before I was diagnosed, I ran my first marathon with a few friends from church. Now, before you get too impressed I should mention it was all downhill. A bit of a cheat, I know, but I needed all the help I could get if I was going to run 26.2 miles.
My goal was fourfold: (1) finish; (2) no tears; (3) no blood; and (4) beat Oprah (she ran the Marine Corps Marathon in 4:29:20 in 1994). I set the bar pretty low. I’m that kind of high achiever.
Training for a marathon is almost a full-time job. We ran five days a week and I’ll admit, three of those I didn’t even want to put my shoes on. My muscles were sore from all that pavement pounding, I was constantly tired, and I struggled to fit the long runs into my week. If it wasn’t for my BRB (best running buddy) Winn, the positive physical and emotional changes I saw, and the habit I was forming, I probably would have skipped more than I did.
I ran when I didn’t feel like it because I knew the promise of getting stronger and fitter was real and tangible. I ran when I least wanted to because I knew it was a discipline my body could learn. And I ran when the sofa, a family pack of peanut M&M’s, and the latest episode of Downton Abbey were calling my name because I knew I’d feel better if I did.
What if we treated practicing gratitude in the same way we train for a marathon—in daily steps toward a greater goal? What if we stopped waiting to feel grateful and were grateful anyway, believing God is good and has more for us? Gratitude is nothing more than the act of giving thanks before we might feel like it. As Robert Emmons says, “It is vital to make a distinction between feeling grateful and being grateful. We don’t have total control over our emotions. We cannot easily will ourselves to feel grateful, less depressed, or happy. Feelings follow from the way we look at the world, thoughts we have about the way things are, the way things should be, and the distance between these two points.”6
My friend Kristan is a genius at this.
Flip the Script
Kristan is a ball of energy. She’s a mum of five, a counselor, writer, speaker, and breast cancer survivor who teaches group exercise classes at the YMCA. Just writing about her life exhausts me—especially since she’s a triple amputee.
Just after the birth of her fifth baby, Kristan assumed her fitness and flu shot were why she’d avoided all the winter bugs. But then the double whammy of strep throat on top of a bad case of the flu spiraled her into septic shock, almost killing her. Not many people make it through septic shock, but after three weeks in a medically induced coma and one hundred days in six different hospitals, a powerful treatment saved her life—but at the cost of her hands and feet.
Today, having lost both arms just below her elbows, one foot from just below her knee, and the heel and toes on her one remaining foot, she manages to smile, joking that she’s lost three and a half limbs.
Of course she’d take her hands back in a heartbeat.
You bet she wishes it had never happened.
And yet she’s grateful for the good that’s come from this in her marriage, her children, her faith, in the people she’s met along the way, and in her own outlook on life.
Speaking of being grateful in the pain seems easy for her now. She’s quick to notice the way people open up to her when her prosthetics reveal her vulnerability, how the staff at her local Aldi can read her mood and know when she wants help and when it’s best to leave her to do it alone, or how children ask how she lost her arms with a boldness that mortifies their parents. She’s grateful for these moments.
Even when pain keeps her up at night, she thanks God he’s there with her as she feels his comfort.
Ironically, Kristan was in the middle of doing a thirty-day gratefulness challenge for Thanksgiving when she got sick. She only made it to November 23, but has picked up where she left off. She now writes down three things she’s grateful for each day and even gives this as homework to her therapy patients. Reminding them it takes patience, practice, and intention, she teaches them to flip their script and change “I have to” into “I get to.” As she lets me in on some of her self-talk exercises I’m inspired and challenged.
“I have to do eight loads of laundry” becomes “I get to do eight loads of laundry today because I have an automatic machine, clean hot water, and five beautiful children with more than enough clothes to wear.”
“I have to drive carpool” becomes “I get to pick up my girls from soccer and hear them chatter with their friends. I get to drive when I never thought I’d get behind the wheel again, let alone turn a key in the ignition.”
By flipping the script, she flips her attitude from pain to praise, groaning to gratitude.
Change one word, change your outlook. That’s her motto, and she is living proof it works.
Don’t get me wrong. She’s not a happy-skippy, walking-talking bundle of gratefulness who never gets angry, frustrated, or overwhelmed. She may have arms with battery packs, but she’s not superhuman. But she is convinced. Convinced there’s more of life to be grabbed, even with prosthetic hands. Convinced her outlook can be changed by her thoughts and actions. She knows changing her outlook takes purposeful practice, and even if that practice doesn’t make things perfect, it does make them easier. The more the frustration and anger fade, the more she sees the positive results of feeling more alive and the more she wants to be grateful, until finally she doesn’t have to remind herself anymore.
Thanksgiving has become an outlook and a lifestyle for this featherweight fighter.
Kristan’s life is far from easy. Her storm isn’t going to blow over next week or even next year. She could roll over and give up, but she doesn’t. Instead she chooses to flip the script and give thanks in all things, just like her hero the apostle Paul implored. Against all the odds Kristan squeezes every last drop out of the new and painful life she never signed up for.
When our pain screams, our gratitude must shout louder—not to deny it but to drown it out with praise. When we’re fighting addiction, experiencing chronic pain, enduring chemo, or overwhelmed with caring for an aging parent, gratitude is hard, but it is possible. Practicing gratitude is an intentional act of faith, saying yes to God’s command and will for our lives. Like so many steps of faith, it brings blessing as we plant our feet in front of us, however tentatively, remembering two steps forward and one step back is still progress.
I still struggle to run when I haven’t got the energy, and I’m still learning to be grateful even when I don’t feel it. I’m still learning to lean into the cracks and tears of my life and choose to thank God for them. It’s not easy but it is possible, and as William Wordsworth is rumored to have said, “To begin, begin.” Let’s dive in, whether we feel like it or not, knowing and trusting the water we dive into is the living, life-giving water of the One whose abundance we crave.
I am a Thriver.
I believe life doesn’t have to be pain-free to be full.
I reject the lies of the world about who and whose I am.
I embrace the truth that I am loved, seen, and enough, and that God loves me, isn’t mad, and will never leave.
I’ve got this because God’s got me, and together we can do more than I could ever do alone.
I choose brave, knowing it doesn’t need to be big, just intentional.
I trust God, even when I don’t want to and can’t sense his presence, because I’ve checked his credentials and can let go of everything I’ve been clinging to.
I lean into community because thriving is a team sport and no one wins alone.
I step into vulnerable spaces with God and others, aware that my strength can be my biggest weakness.
I embrace the good, the bad, and the ugly of my journey, knowing the only way out is through and there’s life and healing to be found along the way.
I practice gratitude in all things, confident that peace and well-being will follow.