Joyful Ruins

1 Thessalonians 5:18 Give thanks in every circumstance.

You’re kidding me right?

Give thanks in every circumstance is not an easy pill to swallow. Let’s be honest, even when circumstances are wonderful, we don’t do a good job of giving thanks. And when circumstances are difficult… well, it is not as easy to find things to be thankful for.

Then, again, I’ve been contemplating what it means to give thanks for me personally.

Giving thanks looks different in every season, to every person, and it may even look different for you every day.

I wake up sick every morning so I don’t wake up with the most grateful attitude. I grumble and war with my body to feel differently. These are futile responses to my circumstances.

Only now, mostly out of desperation, have I been able to find a way to give thanks. Don’t get me wrong, God’s character, alone, is something I can always give thanks for, but I think we are called to do more than that. We are called to be thankful for things within whatever circumstance we are going through.

For me, that means being thankful that one of my symptoms is no longer a problem. I may be dealing with an entirely different and new symptom at the moment, but the other one I had been worrying over for days had gone away.

Maybe it’s even just being thankful that God has kept you breathing. He’s chosen to keep you a live for a purpose and it is His love that is giving yo breath and sight and hearing, whatever faculty and health you have left.

I don’t know where you find yourself today. Just don’t put thankfulness in a box. American culture has made me think thankfulness is pretending I’m ok when I really am not. That is not true.

The strength of giving thanks in all circumstances is the ability to see good even in the smallest thing while you feel bad.

It’s not easy but is is always possible. Let’s work together to redefine giving thanks within whatever circumstances we find ourselves in,