As a good southern girl, along with lessons in making cornbread, the proper wearing of white, and saying ma’am and sir, I learned to write thank you notes. I was expected to express my appreciation in person for any thoughtfulness. But I would send a hand-written card in the mail after receiving a gift. I remember being personally thanked for sending a note to a church member who gave me a graduation present. Did I need to write another one for the gift of her words? Ah, the endless cycle of “thank yous” we southerners could face in our efforts to express appreciation. That gift, a necklace, is the only one out of dozens I specifically recall. Gratitude, genuinely felt and expressed, indelibly connects giver, gift, and recipient. I had only begun to learn lessons in gratitude

Although I learned to “say thank you” from childhood, the past four years opened my eyes to the incredible power of gratitude. Reeling from a gut-punch diagnosis, I questioned the goodness of my God who allowed cancer to trickle through His hands into my daughter’s life. Almost immediately, we were surrounded by His love soothing us through the hands and prayers of His saints. Time after time, along a broken path, doubts and fears were replaced with thoughtful deeds from friends. And in tiny steps only our Lord can orchestrate, we were transformed from grateful recipients into thankful givers, all the while receiving more than we needed. When vessels overflow, they become rivers and fountains. In the rougher, drier seasons of Maggie’s illness, I found myself searching the deep reserves gratitude had etched to find fresh strength and peace. Looking back over the entire journey, those channels cut through the hard rocks of adversity remind me of three key lessons in gratitude.

Three lessons in Gratitude

Gratitude destroys the joy-deadening darkness of self-pity. Oh, the death grip my list of grievances formed as it twisted from my lips to my neck. Cries of unfairness mingled with demands for justice. Why should my child suffer pain, alienation, indignity and disappointment? Why should I have to helplessly watch? Oswald Chambers points out the insidious danger of this particular sin when he states, “No sin is worse than the sin of self-pity, because it removes God from the throne of our lives, replacing Him with our own self-interests.” Before self-pity could complete its stifling work, I was reminded: God understands. He allowed His own Son to suffer unjustly. In identifying with Him with a thankful heart, our gaze is moved from justice to mercy. We’re redirected from piling all our losses on one side of the scales to stacking our gains in the other pan. In an agonizing but redemptive process, all the jagged scars of skin and soul are burnished in a work of repurposing, producing beauty and useful grace.

A Mercedes Half Marathon finisher medal given to the Phase I team at UAB

Gratitude transforms our treasures and the hands that hold them into instruments of grace. I began running to earn medals for Maggie after her own dreams of completing the Glass Slipper Challenge at Disney were put on hold. I found I liked running and having a shiny medal placed around my neck. The desire to collect these tokens propelled me through training runs to the race’s end. Only when I began to loosen my grip and share those medals did I sense a greater need and more satisfying finish line – to allow my expression of gratitude to be a channel of His grace and mercy. Instead of collecting dust when hoarded, our treasures bring joy when shared. Praise the LORD! Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! Psalm 106:1 The Hebrew root word for “give thanks” contains the idea of both the action of throwing and, literally, an open hand. A grateful heart releases the grip to cast its treasures abroad.

Gratitude brings peace to anxious hearts. I confess dark moments throughout the past four years threw me on my back in paralyzing fear of a daunting present and an unknown future. Only remembering the everlasting love of a good God would calm the crippling anxiety. The words “fear not” form the most frequently repeated command in scripture. I believe “give thanks” is a close second. The two are joined in cause and effect union in Philippians 4:6-7. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Paul instructs us, from a Roman prison no less, to offer prayers laced with gratitude in order to experience an end to and further protection from anxious thoughts.

This Thanksgiving is different; the first one without Maggie. It’s new ground for those of us learning to live without her. I’m unsure of my way forward except to find a path that feels familiar – one left smooth by grateful believers before us who allowed gratitude to mark their steps. When her absence whispers louder than the voices around, I’ll give thanks for twenty years of life well-lived. When a vacant seat looms large at our table, we’ll cast an invitation with open hands and hearts to someone who is surrounded by nothing other than empty chairs. And when shadows threaten to hide the sun, I’ll send prayers alight with endless thanks to fill the sky. Gratitude offers to us each day, not just once a year, an appetizer, a foretaste, of a heavenly feast to come.