I'm Thankful Today...

I have appreciated all the gratitude posts on Facebook and other social media in this month of Thanksgiving.  What I observe, however, is that nearly all of them are expressions of gratitude for positive goods.  "I am grateful for health, wealth, home, family, job, etc."  These are fine things for which to be grateful, but that's the easy part.

I strive today to be grateful for the adversity that has been part of the journey so far.  By this time precisely two years ago, I had been awakened by a phone call from the hospital.  Anne, my first wife, had become unresponsive.  By now I had gone to the hospital and realized that my life as I had known it was over.  By now I had called our children, her family, my siblings and my pastor with the news.  By now I was beginning to think about what would come next and how we would get through this.

I am not grateful for the pain, the death, the grief and all the dislocated chaos.  I am grateful for what God has brought out of the tragedy.  I am grateful for the new life Jesus has built in the midst of the wreckage.  I do, in fact, trust that in all things God is working for good for those who love God and trust in God's mercy.

I am grateful that I get to learn to be content in all things.  I give thanks for all the goodness in my life today: for Brenda, for our children and family, for our puppy, Bella, for our work and our community and our home.  Those are all marvelous gifts from our gracious and generous God.  And I give thanks even more that those gifts have come in the midst of all the death and destruction that the Evil One could fire in our direction.

I wish that none of the terrible things had happened to Anne or to any of us.  But happen they did.  And in the midst of that awful stuff, God gives new life and hope and joy.  Nothing good from this life is lost.  And nothing terrible can ever separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

At our wedding, we played the Rascal Flats song, "God Bless the Broken Road."  I continue to hear that song often in my heart.  The broken places are not God's doing.  But the fact that there is a road forward, a path through the darkness, a chance to live and learn and grow from the pain--that is God's doing and it is marvelous indeed.

I am grateful for the adversity.