In Everything Give Thanks

I love how God prepares us for things without us even knowing we’re being prepared. Last year about this time, I gave a devotion to my Bible study group on giving thanks. One verse in particular stood out to me, and I felt led to make it my verse for the year. It was 1 Thessalonians 5:18, “in everything give thanks, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” It struck me how often I wished that I knew what God’s will was and here I had it in black and white. So as I began this year, I decided to do 365 days of thankfulness (which turned into 366 days of thankfulness in February when I realized that it was a leap year). Everyday on my personal Facebook page, I put at least one thing that I'm thankful for.

What I didn’t know was how God was preparing me for this year. The verse says “in everything”. Everything isn’t just the good and lovely things, but it’s also the difficult and hurtful things as well. I don’t think we have to give thanks for those things, but there should be something that we can be thankful for even in those moments.

So this year began with my son hurting his knee. As we prepared to see the orthopedic doctor I prayed for two things: that it would be abundantly clear what the issue was, and that my (then) 8 year old son would still be able to be an active boy. As soon as the doctor pulled up the MRI, he said, “Well, here’s where the ACL should be . . . and it’s not there.” A torn ACL wasn’t what I was hoping for, but it was abundantly clear, just like I had asked. He is too young for the reconstruction surgery. He has to be 13 or 14 so they don’t risk damaging his growth plates. So he’s now in a brace – for the next 5 or 6 years. Again, not what I was hoping for. But, the doctor said that with the brace he can play on the playground, run around with his friends, even play in Little League still. God answered my prayers, and I could only be thankful.

Then around Easter we found out that my grandpa had kidney cancer. Once again this was not a situation that I was thankful for, yet I found there were still blessings in that situation as well. My grandpa had said that he just didn’t want to do chemo. He had seen my grandma go through chemo when she battled breast cancer and he didn’t want to go through that. Turns out that kidney cancer does not respond to chemo so that wasn’t even an option. Also, kidneys are something that can be removed especially if the other one is functioning – and it was. When they did the surgery, they found that all the cancer was contained to that one kidney. After he recovered, my grandpa felt better than he had for a long time. I certainly didn’t want my grandpa to have to go through that, but I was able to see so many blessings even in that cancer diagnosis.

Also around Easter, my dad went to the hospital with severe pain. Turns out he had gall stones and pancreatitis. They had to wait for his enzymes to level out before they could do surgery, but they were able to do the surgery lapraroscopically which they weren’t sure they would be able to do, so we were thankful. He felt so much better as soon as the surgery was done. Unfortunately, his white blood cell count was climbing which is never a good sign after surgery. An MRI was done and it was discovered that my dad’s pancreas had started eating itself. Somewhere between 10-20% of the pancreas was dead  - never to heal. Even in this, the part of the pancreas that produces insulin was left undamaged – definitely a blessing.

My dad was in the hospital for 28 days as they tried to figure things out. During that time, the Awana kids gave him a poster get well card which hung on his wall. Every nurse, doctor or tech that came in would stop to read it. Then they’d ask if he was a teacher and he would explain that he taught the Bible to children. It allowed him to witness to each of them – a tremendous blessing.

At long last they began to talk about sending him home, but with a feeding tube. Dad did not want to go home with a feeding tube. For some reason, they couldn’t get the feeding tube in the right spot. They tried to position it using X-ray and were still unable to do it. Finally they decided to just pull it out. When they did, they discovered that the tube had a knot in it. The doctors were amazed. They had heard about that sort of thing happening, but had never seen it. They also hadn’t seen the knot on the x-rays. Dad just said that God didn’t want him to go home with a feeding tube either. Something he was very thankful for.

My dad soon found out just how sick he had been. Doctor after doctor told him that they didn’t know how he had survived his illness. They told him that they were passing his chart around the hospital in amazement and everyone concluded that he should have died. Yet God spared him. When they doctors would shake their head in wonder, my dad would simply smile and say, “God isn’t done with me yet”. I am very thankful that God isn’t done with my dad here on earth quite yet.

Around August, my dad was back in the hospital with more pain. His pancreas had developed a pseudocyst that had filled with fluid and was pushing on his pancreas causing it to be inflamed again. Another surgery was performed – this time a more invasive one. While my dad was in the hospital, my sister was admitted to the hospital to deliver her third baby girl. The hospital staff moved my dad to the same wing as labor and delivery. He was able to gown up and go visit his new granddaughter. It was a tremendous blessing for them both to be in the same hospital. My mom particularly was thankful for the proximity as she would run back and forth between the two of them. We were also thankful that my dad’s hospital stay was only a week long the second time.

Maybe there have been issues that made this year less than perfect, but in each of those things, I was able to see the blessings that God arrange. I think I would have missed them if I hadn’t been intentionally looking for things to be thankful for. I probably would have said that this year was a rough year, a difficult year – maybe even a bad year, but seeing all the things I had to be thankful for, I can truly say that it has been a blessed year. God was preparing my heart to have a spirit of thanksgiving all year long and I was better equipped to get through the difficulties because of it. I hope that it is an attitude that will remain with me long after this year has ended.

I encourage you to take this month to find something to be thankful each day. Or maybe God is laying it on your heart to make it a challenge for next year to daily find something to give thanks for just like He did for me. I think you’ll find that those difficult situations become more bearable, and you’ll be surprised at how blessed you really are.