How focusing our thoughts on Christ can strengthen our faith, even when our hearts are hurting.
The title of this post might make some of you feel dismissed. How can you have gratitude in the middle of grief? How can you be thankful when you've lost your spouse? How can you choose to be grateful for something you never asked for that has devastated your life? How can you experience gratitude while still feeling so incredibly sad?
I remember feeling many of these same things. I had the same questions and struggled to understand how I could choose to be grateful in the middle of overwhelming grief. It took me a long time to understand that grief and gratitude are not mutually exclusive. They can live together.
When I was first widowed, I remember someone saying to me, "Just be thankful." That statement stuck with me for a long time because I couldn't understand how I was supposed to just be grateful when I was completely devastated. I had lost my spouse. This person had no idea what I was struggling with. They hadn't lost a spouse or the father of their children. They weren't a single mom at the age of 33, trying to raise two small children.
I don't think that person meant to be insensitive. I truly believe they wanted to help me and show me that it was okay to be grateful, even in the middle of incredible sadness. But at the time, I couldn't understand how those two things could exist together.
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Finding Thankfulness When Life is Difficult
November is often associated with gratitude. It’s the month of Thanksgiving, and everywhere we turn, we’re reminded to be thankful. Social media fills up with gratitude challenges and lists of blessings. We’re encouraged to stop and think about all the good things in our lives.
But what happens when you’re struggling? When life isn’t going the way you’d hoped? What happens when you’re grieving and exhausted?
Gratitude can sometimes feel like one more thing we’re supposed to do. One more thing to check off our list. But what if your list is already a mile long, and you can’t add one more thing? What if feeling grateful seems impossible because you’re just trying to survive the day? How can you make yourself be thankful when you’ve lost so much?
Pain and disappointment can take up so much of our attention that it’s difficult to notice anything else. Grief is right at the surface, and it doesn’t take much for it to become overwhelming. The expectations for what this Thanksgiving would look like may have been completely shattered by loss. Even ordinary days can feel heavy.
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