Gratitude in Surprising Places

You’ve seen the images dozens of times. A family has just lost its home or a community has just been devastated by a natural disaster. The cameras are rolling, and the person who has just lost everything says, “We’re just grateful that we still have one another. Everything else can be replaced.”

If we heard that line once or twice, it would be one thing. We hear it so often, though, that it seems to actually be a common, and sincere, response to surviving a disaster. There’s something totally illogical about it. We work hard to build a home and accumulate the things that go into it. Then we lose it all in one devastating day, and our response is one of gratitude.

How can that be?

Perhaps a big part of it is simply relief about what we didn’t lose. Even if that’s the case, though, I think it represents that we’ve developed a new mindset, a different perspective, a transformed way of thinking. In that moment, we are not focused on what we don’t have and trying to acquire more. At that time, we aren’t taking anything for granted, as though possessions, health, or even life are guaranteed to us. Coming out of a traumatic event that shakes our world, we tend to get a great deal of clarity about what really matters to us and what doesn’t. We also realize, perhaps for the first time, that everything is a gift to be enjoyed and shared.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to get to the same place in life—a place of deeply felt gratitude—without having a near-death experience? Perhaps it’s possible. Perhaps it’s something we can nurture into maturity like a gardener gently cares for her plants.

Two elements seem to be central to gratitude. The first is a recognition that the things we enjoy in life aren’t guaranteed to us. Health, economic security, freedom from pain, a home to live in, children, even life itself—none of these things are guaranteed to us. Ministry with people who have lost some of these things can remind us of their fleeting nature. As we care for others who are in need and become more aware of the suffering others endure, we find overturned our assumptions that the many things we enjoy will last forever. Like a farmer turning over the hard soil with a plow, this ministry can prepare the soil of our own hearts for seeds of gratitude.

A second element that seems central to gratitude is to focus on our blessings rather than focusing on what we lack. Immediately following a natural disaster, people often focus on the question: “What’s left? What do I still have?” To take an assessment of everything that had been lost would put them into a deep depression. Instead, they instinctively look for what remains, what will provide hope for the future, what will give them a reason to keep living.

We can choose to “count our blessings” at any time. The goal is obviously not to quantify them—to try to determine our “net worth” or something akin to that. Instead, the goal is to give thanks for each of the people, situations, and things in our life that bring us joy or comfort. We may even find that things or people that cause us discomfort but help us grow qualify as blessings and should be named as such.

Our grandmothers were right: “counting our blessings” has a way of making our hearts more grateful. Hearts filled with gratitude tend to overflow with generosity, peace, love and compassion. Such things are medicine of the Holy Spirit for a broken and hurting world.

Consider how you can reach out to people who are hurting. Consider forming a habit of cultivating gratitude. And then enjoy waiting for the harvest to come in!

Grace & Peace,

Dan