I am thankful 11/28/2010
For safety while traveling.
For thankfulness. At the start of this year I did not feel especially thankful. I felt needy and desperate. I was unemployed and Josh’s work had not only slowed, some of his few clients were not paying. I stood in the frozen food section in Wal-Mart and looked longingly at the peas. There was no way I could justify buying them for $1.25/lb when dried beans could be purchased for the same price and then double in size once soaked. I watched my naturally happy husband slip away into a world of stress-induced depression knowing that he would not have felt so much pressure if only I were employed. I cried over a toothache not because of the pain, but because of the knowledge that it could soon feel dreadful and that there was no way to pay for a root canal.
The one luxury we had was the internet since it was essential for Josh’s work. And so I got to spend my days sending in resumes and reading what felt like the entire world moaning over their luxury. One friend complained that she and her husband had been having such a hard time financially that they had only made the minimum payment on their credit card that month. Others complained that they did not have babies or husbands. And I seethed. “Are you serious? You have nothing to complain about! You may have $300 in debt, but if anything went wrong you would have nothing more to worry about than a bit more debt to pay off. You are in the position where you could afford to adopt, the only reason you are unhappy is that you feel entitled to a child made out of your own body! You think not having a husband is bad? Try having one and then watching yourself destroy his life! I could tell you from experience that it is far, far easier to eat ice cream and cry on the couch because you are lonely than to sit on the cold floor crying because you are far too stressed to have anything coherent to say to your spouse.”
And then it struck me that if I could see how entitled these people were and how they were only unhappy because of their incorrect focus, then surely someone else could see the same thing in my life? Yes, I might be cold, but I could always take a blanket and sit on the floor by Josh’s desk and the space heater. I might not have money for vegetables, but I was never hungry thanks to beans and cheap flour to make bread. I never had a safe place to sleep each night and clean running water in the morning. Furthermore, we might have been far too stressed to enjoy each other’s company, but how much better to have a stressed spouse than an abusive one?!
I realized that there was nothing that I could do to make my life better, but I could choose to be thankful for the things I had that others would so desperately wish for. And so I resolved to be thankful. Less than two weeks later I was most solidly hit over the head by the earthquake in Haiti. There was nothing that I could do and I could barely handle the thought. It was so very clear that I had everything to be thankful for.
I could be thankful for the fact that I had a few planters of greens so that we were not entirely without fresh vegetables. I could be thankful for the tremendous gift of church nearby. And soon I could even be thankful for thankfulness.
Now it is almost a year later and I have not only a refrigerator stocked with vegetables but dental insurance I find myself incredibly thankful for the chance to appreciate what I have. Some days I struggle to think of what to add to my thankful list, but that is mostly because I am afraid that I have either already listed it, or that it is just too much gushing about Josh. So now I am thankful not only for the many physical blessings I enjoy, but for the fact that my gratitude is a natural response to previously wished-for blessings rather than a forced recognition of what I do have, even as I desire so much more.
read in gratitude.
that’s all I can say.
this was stunning.
God Bless
Thank you!
I’ve missed you online lately. I was just thinking of you ten minutes ago as I was pounding the pavement in a cold west wind, as a matter of fact, and here you are!
I am thankful for YOU.
And I am thankful for your kind words!
Your words have sent chills down my spine because I could relate to them so easily. There were many days late last summer when what kept me going was the thought of others who would look at my life and think ‘how could she possible complain?’ I too chose to focus on the gratitude, and it truly does make all of the difference.
Prayers of gratitude for you.
Thank you.
Thank you for that post, Rae, it was touchingly open and sincere. The more I read of your work, the more I am humbled by your talent, skills and depth. In this post, especially in your reservations about “too much gushing about Josh”, I see hints of my own life and experiences. I’m in a later-in-life remarriage, but this time I’ve been blessed to find a woman of such depth and kindness and gentleness that at times I know I tend to “gush” about my Suzanne. It took a long time and too many trips down some really rough roads before Suz and I were ripened enough and learned enough of life’s lessons to be as good together as we are. Hearing of a couple who is much younger who share our blessing of honest appreciation for each other brings a happy smile to my face. So, thanks again, Rae. God Bless you both, today and always.
How wonderful! I love it when people who are admittedly broken can also be so clearly beloved.
I think your post has some valid points, but I also think you may have been undermining someone else’s suffering. For instance, the woman/couple who were longing for their own child but could afford to adopt. That is/was a loss for them, regardless if their privillage could provide them with a child that would be adopted. Childbirth is viewed as “natural” for women by our society so when women can’t have children biologically, they may feel less than. I personally haven’t felt that but I can only imagine how agonizing it is. That feeling shouldn’t be seen as ungrateful, but respected.
I do think people don’t take time to look at the privillage they have in their lives and need to take a moment to appreciate and thank God for all that they do have. I think, and I’m guilty of this too, that sometimes the little “have nots” outweigh the have’s and it is a daily struggle for anyone to see past that. Thouh I certainly wouldn’t tell a woman/couple who can’t produce their own children to suck it up and adopt..that’s just insensitive and ignoring their pain.
Meg, I think that you completely misunderstood this post, but even in misunderstanding you call me to a higher form of holiness. And for that I am thankful.
I think the misunderstanding here may be that you think I was arguing for something in this post. I was not. My only “point” is that I am thankful. The comments about others who have more and complain were not present tense criticisms of them, it was an account of how I felt at the start of the year. And I think that it is perfectly fine to be honest about how I felt about people who had more than me and still complained.
I am not commenting on someone else’s blog, or even writing a post directed at those who weep at $200 in debt/despair over infertility/feel miserable about being single. In fact, when I was struggling with this I made sure to not comment at all to those who increased my pain with their self-pity. I am now explaining my journey to gratitude. It would be perfectly reasonable for someone in Haiti to scoff at my desperation when I had safe housing, clean water, and plenty of food. In the same way it was perfectly reasonable for me to feel jealous of and even angered by those who had all of the resources that I desired, and yet were unhappy. Is it saintly to be jealous rather than sympathetic of those who have more yet are miserable? Certainly not. But it is natural, and I don’t want to only post about the areas in which I am saintly.
I would never suggest that a woman struggling to get pregnant “suck it up and adopt!” I don’t think that adoption should ever be a second-choice inferior option for acquiring children. But that does not change the fact that I want to adopt, and that these women had everything that I wanted and still found a reason to feel badly for themselves. And that was hugely helpful for me in realizing that I must too have everything that someone else wants. So now I am thankful for having so much to be thankful for and the experience which has allowed me to realize how much of the pain of unfulfilled desire is absolutely unnecessary.
This post reminded me of how sometimes compassion is a more appropriate response than honesty. That and maybe I shouldn’t read your blog right before I go to bed.
Also, thanks for your comment, Meg.
One other thing. If you do have a tooth emergency, maybe you can do like we grad students do and go to the dental school for free work (if there is one nearby). You may have to get early to beat the line, but the work they do is free and a certified dentist is there to watch and fix it if anything goes wrong. Not the best system, but definitely beats walking around with a toothache. Anyway, that’s what we do down here without the luxury of dental insurance. (That and pray I don’t get elbowed in the face when I play basketball!)
As I said in my email, I can’t resist the urge to reply to your dentist comment.
I have yet to encounter a dental school that provides free work for those who are not affiliated with the school (granted, I’ve only looked into 5 or so, but still!). When I was in college I went to a local dental school and got horribly inferior work which seemed to me to cost a lot (same price for dental school work in New England as regular dentist in Nashville). And even if the dental schools “nearby” had offered free care, just buying gas to get there would have been an issue.
It kills me that our system is set up so that we train grad students to think of themselves as poor. And, compared to most of the US, let alone the world, they aren’t. Grad students have huge opportunities that they assume are available to others. But they are also stuck comparing themselves to their professors who in turn compare themselves to their counterparts in the business world. So everyone feels poor and like most cultures we train our elite to feel deprived. Crazy world!
I don’t remember claiming that graduate students were the poorest of the poor, and yes, we have unlimited potential for future earnings, just most of us at private institutions don’t have coverage for health, dental, and vision insurance. We’re required to buy health insurance to attend school, but dental and vision are optional. I was just trying to offer a solution for you that you may not have known about, since you’re right! While we may not have the money, we definitely have the hook-up on opportunities and I probably wouldn’t have known that you can get free dental work unless other ‘in the know’ grad students had told me so. Around here you don’t have to be affiliated with any university, but we do live within walking distance of the world’s largest medical center.
Very simply, this post made me thankful. Thank you, Rae.
Praise God for His provision. And praise Him also for lack, when it reveals our covetousness and idols, and drives us to simplicity and the centrality of Christ above all things.
I’m right with you in that journey.
Oh yes, though sometimes I really, really struggle to see Christ rather than my own self-pity! And I love your posts about living Christianity without abundance of material blessings!
Your post reminds me of St. Francis’ power prayer… http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/pray0027.htm Grant that I may not so much see to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love with all my heart. I too am learning, (over-and-over in fact,) that other people are a mirror for me. Frustration, anger, disappointment in others is only a disguise for something God is trying to reveal to me about myself– an opportunity to grow in compassion for others and myself, all while growing closer to Him. Thanks for an honest post!
Such a great way of saying it. Thank you.