Thankfulness in the Darkness Too

Thankfulness is not the same as positive thinking. It is living with open hands, mask removed, accepting what is given in the moment with humble gratitude.

I am still learning this, and once I barely knew it at all.

In the midst of deep anxiety and depression as I served my two-point rural parish, constantly worrying if I was doing enough, if I was giving the church their money’s worth…feeling stuck deep inside, paralyzed and alone…feeling a longing to stay home with my daughter but a deep sense of wanting to endure with my local congregations, to not give up on them…so torn between seemingly irreconcilable commitments, I went to see a Christian counselor who had an enormous impact on my life. I remember sitting in her office, feeling lost and alone, and she said to me, “God doesn’t want you to feel dead inside.”

This was a different statement, of course, than for her to say, “God wants you to be happy-pappy all the time.” No, she was not telling me that God was leading me to a life of ease and me-focus. So many counselors before her had focused on the message, “You’re such a wonderful person. You have every right to be happy and have things the way you want them.” But I knew that I was a sinner and that consequently I could not completely trust my heart. And my experience of failure and struggle did not resonate with the happy-pappy message counselors often gave me. And the happy-pappy message also did not resonate with the call to take up the cross and follow Jesus that we read about in Scripture.

Could there be a way to embrace the cross and joy at the same time?

This woman of God, this counselor, challenged me in tremendous ways. She taught me that the anger and shut-off emotions I had surrendered to for years were not God’s plan for me. Rather, she taught me that I needed to open my heart to the grief, the pain of the losses I had suffered over the years, the pain of the losses I was suffering now. She taught me that through grieving, I would find healing. She taught me that my heart would stay soft before God and before others if I would open to the grieving. I learned that over the years, I had gotten good at setting up a hardened barrier around my heart. It was a protective crust, like the hardened chocolate on a dipped ice cream cone. And what my counselor was asking me to do was to bring it before the light and life of Jesus and let that protective coating be melted away.

Frightening. Vulnerable. Naked. That’s the feeling you have when that hardened crust begins to melt away.

But you also feel freedom. Relief. Hope.

Finally the mask can come off. That mask of perfectionism and people pleasing. It is a daily journey of recovery to let it go. That old image beast dies hard, of course. And of course the final killing of self and image and sin and bondage is not accomplished until we take our final breath. And yet. We have been given the first fruits of new life in the Holy Spirit. What I came to see through my counselor was that the perfectionism that grips my soul so easily was in fact intense self-focus and intense self-protection. She led me to the profound book From Bondage to Bonding by Nancy Groom, a book that challenged me to repentance for the ways I protect myself from God and from other people.

I am a work in process. It is a daily repentance to turn to God instead of to my own resources. All too easily, I turn to the ways of bondage again, to worry, anger, fear, control. And my relationship with God and others always suffers for it. I retreat into my self-protective bunker with nothing but the dark to keep me company. But God has been calling me out again and again. He has finally given me a vision of what health can look like. Acceptance. Trust. Release of the clutched fists. Melting of the frozen heart.

A few years ago, as I was walking through this journey, I read Ann Voskamp’s book, One Thousand Gifts. As I read the meditation that is Ann’s book, I was forced to slow down and take in each intentional, beautiful, heart-breaking word. I was forced face-to-face with her story, which is a rugged story of loss (her toddler sister dying when Ann was 4, her brother-in-law’s two children dying in as many years), depression, darkness, despair…and finally the light that she was brought into as she learned to “in all things give thanks.” It is powerful precisely because she does not offer easy answers but the hard-won insights of a woman who has battled the darkest demons this world has to throw at us.

As I lay in bed one night soon after, I found myself worrying about money. It seemed as though money was almost tighter every month that went by. I found myself coveting what other mothers have materially at my age. I found myself wishing for a bigger savings account…for more money for trips…clothes…eating out.  I found myself resenting the lack of money. And then the message came to my heart. Accept, lean in, be thankful.

The next day, I spent the whole morning in the kitchen baking. A friend of ours was going to the Philippines to start an orphanage, and they were holding a bake sale to support this important mission. My daughter and I baked cookies, plum-side down cakes, and blueberry muffins. With sunshine pouring in through the window, my daughter chirping happily and fascinated by every step of the baking, the sharing of the joyful experience of cooking and serving others together, I found thankfulness welling up in my heart.

But I know that there will be many times when sunshine is not pouring through the window, one of my kids is stamping their foot, when I feel depressed and worried. There will be times when I face suffering and sorrow. What then?

In all things, give thanks.  Ann Voskamp has shown the way. Daily, she writes down the things for which she is thankful. She encourages others to do the same. Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to begin focusing more intentionally on cultivating a grateful attitude. There is always something for which to give thanks. Whether you write a thanksgiving journal, pray daily with thankfulness, or remind yourself when you can of how much you have been given, thankfulness is a powerful way to live life.

When you are thankful, you are vulnerable because you admit that not everything good in your life comes from your own hand. When you are thankful, you are not in control. When you are thankful, you live knowing that you are loved right where you are and as you are. When you are thankful, you live with open hands, receiving what is given in the moment.

How do you cultivate thanksgiving in your daily life?