Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day. It’s a day that our nation has set aside in which we stop working and prioritize thankfulness. Thankfulness is very important to God. We are to do all things, both in speech and actions, in the name of Jesus, “Giving thanks through Him to God the Father”. (Colossians 3:17) We are to give thanks to the Lord because He is good, and His love is steadfast and enduring. (Psalm 69:30) We are to give thanks to Him because His mercy is enduring. (! Chronicles 16:34-35) We are to choose to pray with earnest sincerity and thankfulness, over anxiety. (Philippians 4:6-7) Then, last but not least, we are to be thankful in all circumstances. (I Thessalonians 5:18) So, thankfulness needs to be an integral part of our daily life, and it needs to be “in all things” Yes, the good and the “bad”. So how can we be thankful at a time like this? Well, certainly it is not easy. It would be much easier if everything was “going our way”, but it’s not.
Thankfulness when things are going “wrong”, requires us to use the discipline of laying aside our emotions, and then making the conscious effort to focus on reality over feelings. Just like joy is not happiness, thankfulness is not happiness either. It is a product of that inner joy, and yet we certainly may not feel happy. We do need emotions, but they can’t control us.
Maybe there are two divisions of thankfulness, thankfulness to man and thankfulness to God. Thankfulness may be easier for one or the other, depending on the circumstances. In our situation, we understand that the things that led to our loss were an “unfortunate chain of events”. There was no intent to harm, no direct connection from the choice of the gluten-free mix all the way to her eating it, and further, she was going to be “ok” up until her lung collapsed. So, there is no person to blame for this. Everyone acted with the best of intentions. We are thankful for a woman who dedicated her life to mentoring young women. We are thankful for the close friendships that Hannah had, and the ones that we have as well. We are thankful for the medical professionals that helped along the way. From the first nurse on the scene to the last nurse when we left the hospital, everything was done to the best of human ability to save our daughter, and we are thankful to all those people. Our extended family is also devastated by this, and they are willing to support us in any way they can. We are thankful to them for so many things. Those that came to the honor walk, those that prayed for us, those that sent messages, those that support and follow on Facebook, and those from our church that supported us; are each groups of people that we are very grateful for.
Thanking God would seem more difficult for us. Several thoughts can run through our minds. “He could have prevented this”. “He could have kept her lung from collapsing”. “He could have provided a miracle”. The reality is that He did not do any of those. He allowed this to happen. So now that we have lost sight of the “path”, so to speak, and none of this makes sense to us, we need to walk by faith. Faith brings us back to what we know about God. It reminds us of His love for us that extended all the way to His Son coming to die for us. His demonstration of that love occurred even while we were still sinners, at enmity with Him. (Romans 5:8) So by choosing to remember who He is and then remembering what I am, I can “see” by faith and trust Him. He is working all things together for good, for those that love Him. (Romans 8:28) As we go through this, there is no step-by-step map to follow. I hope only to help anyone willing to listen and believe, to build up the foundation on which to stand in the day of adversity.
Our plan this Thanksgiving is to continue with everything as “normally” as possible. There is no undoing the past and making ourselves or others “suffer” will not positively change anything. We are looking forward to the best possible family Thanksgiving tomorrow! We did make one adjustment though that I will mention. Again, there may be some who would disagree with this decision, and that’s fine, but we made the decision not to attend our church’s Thanksgiving service last night. Perhaps we need to lead the charge through this, but instead we thought that it was best to forgo this one so that we, in no way, would be a “wet blanket” at a time of praise and thankfulness. NOT, that others would not be thankful, but we thought that it would be difficult for them to publicly express and share their thankfulness for blessings when we have lost so much, so recently. This may not be the best decision for everyone, but we are not everyone. We are only us.
We are blessed
Hannah Helps 