The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him.

Psalm 28:7 ESV

Sometimes saying you’re grateful for all that you have, especially at Thanksgiving, seems like a cliché.  Who among us hasn’t said a prayer over a plentiful and extravagant Thanksgiving meal, expressing how thankful we are for God’s blessings?  But then shortly after loading our plate full of turkey, stuffing, and other essential dishes, proceed to unleash a litany of minor grievances about the cost of the food, the work to prepare it, or any number of other complaints about our day-to-day life or the people in it.  Sometimes people detest the holidays because they can be so fraught with unreasonable expectations and stress, bringing out the worst in us, rather than the best.  We all find room to grouse about something, no matter the abundance of our blessings.  Perhaps it is human nature to be less than satisfied even when we have enough.  Perhaps it is having so much sustained abundance that it makes us unable to see the incredible blessings surrounding us.  Suggesting that we compare ourselves in our apparent wealth to those living in less developed countries, or even in other neighborhoods within our own country often fails to resonate fully.  If we’ve never lived with those circumstances, never experienced them up close, it is difficult to fully appreciate the magnitude of the difference in how we’re able to live our lives compared to people with far fewer resources.

This year, as with all others before it, has seen more than its fair share of strife, suffering, and crises. It is hard to imagine ourselves in some of these situations, even as we suffer our own difficulties. How often do we say that we are grateful not to be in those same circumstances? Perhaps since the element of choice is so often removed from our own challenges, we are able to see them as somehow more tolerable than someone else’s challenges. Since we don’t have a choice, we must live through it. Or perhaps we’re just numb from all of the energy poured into coping with what we must face. I think it is in these moments that God is carrying us, because we struggle to walk on our own.

The last few years have taught me more about appreciating certain aspects of my life than I could have ever imagined.  I’ve always thought of myself as a grateful person.  I recognized the many blessings in my life, and even made note of these in a daily gratitude journal.  I valued my health and how that allowed me to function fully and do the things I love, like hiking. I tried to take reasonably good care of myself, but I started this blog in response to my health taking an unexpected downward turn.  My story is far from over, and I will talk more about these experiences in upcoming blog posts, but for now, my gratitude is focused on being present, being alive.  I’m still here to tell the tales of fear, anxiety, and pain, but also of hope, renewal, and joy. 

The entirety of my health journey thus far has been overwhelming more often than I care to admit, but the blessings have been there too, almost in lockstep with each event, preventing me from being crushed by the weight of it all.  My faith in God has become stronger and more nuanced.  I’m incredibly grateful for the family and friends that surround me, the capabilities of modern medicine, and for the expertise and kindness of all the health professionals that cared for and supported me.  My sense of gratitude has grown exponentially beyond what I already embraced. 

But for now, for this Thanksgiving, I’m embracing gratitude for the most basic elements of life that nearly all living beings take for granted…until you can’t:  I still have a heartbeat, and I’m still breathing air.  So simple, and yet exceedingly complex when something goes wrong.  I’ll state the obvious – when your heart won’t work, nothing else matters.  When it is restored to functioning, you are infinitely grateful for the life that you’ve been given.  Tomorrow is not promised to any of us, so on Thanksgiving, and on every day I’m privileged to wake up to, I will be grateful.

My wish for all my readers is that you too will find cause for an extra measure of gratitude, on Thanksgiving, and all the days that follow.  I wish you blessings, joy, and peace.