Gratitude Is Not Faith

I often meet with people who begin therapy with, “I have never told anyone this before.” Part of my job is to be an unbiased, objective listener so I am used to this pre-qualifier. I will never get used to what often follows. What often follows, is simply an honest admittance that life is hard and there is no one in this person’s life who will let them be real about life occurrences that happen to so many of us: illness, death, job loss, disappointment, addiction, betrayal, abuse, spiritual battles, and the list goes on. Why is it that so many have few people to share life with?

There is a wave in our society right now that is calling for “gratefulness”, for the abundance that the United States has experienced for a long time. It is true, that as a nation, we are rich in resources and opportunity. Most, and I don’t mean all, healthy people in the United States have access to some support, to live a life beyond the streets. For that, there absolutely has been a lack of understanding of what it means to live without and to fight daily, to simply live. When I travel with Thrive Ministries, around the world, I see firsthand, the poverty and degradation that many in our world are subject to. I serve a population of women sacrificing daily to see this eradicated, so the need for gratefulness is not lost on me. Our first world mindset often forgets that the majority of souls, living in this world, are every day facing the challenge of simply staying alive another day and for many, making life choices that sacrifice their hearts and souls to survive. Our nation would do well to cultivate a spirit of gratefulness, to keep our hearts humble and motivate us to share more than what is expected. Gratefulness is a wonderful attribute.

But as most people can attest if they live long enough, our life journey is more than having food on the table or even, having the latest cell phone. Even those in the most fortunate of situations, still battle through life. From the poorest to the most wealthy, people suffer. All people encounter difficulty far beyond what they ever imagined as they dreamed a plan for their life. As a Christian, I believe that God can turn any pain into dancing. I have experienced it in my own life and I have seen it in the lives of others. However, I wonder if this attachment to gratefulness or a “positive outlook” has clouded our need for honesty, for God’s work, and for faith that all things work together for good. Yes, all things work together for good, but NOT ALL THINGS ARE GOOD!

I remember when I finally got pregnant after years of infertility and people would say to me, “I bet you don’t have a preference whether you have boys or girls. I bet you are just grateful to be pregnant.” While I was beyond thankful to be pregnant, I remember wondering what one had to do with the other. My friends who got pregnant, despite using birth control, were allowed to prefer one sex over another but I was relegated to the “grateful” queue. The same thing happened to me when I was spared chemotherapy in my recent battle with cancer that involved numerous surgeries with ongoing complications. I have been told throughout my life to be grateful when I lost parents, when my dad remarried, when I didn’t lose my home. I have heard this repeatedly, in the sacred space of counseling, when a spurned woman was supposed to be grateful for the provision of alimony, someone was demoted at work but still had a job or someone with a special needs child was supposed to be grateful that her child didn’t die or have a more chronic diagnosis. Why do we insist that people suffering, ignore the pain and embrace the thankful heart? Do we truly believe that it will make it all better? Do we believe that if we are grateful, we might avoid additional hardship?

Can I have permission to speak into your life? Requiring others to put on the grateful-heart-front when their world is crashing down around them, is nothing short of selfish on your part. Accusing another of being a “Debbie-downer” or beginning a sentence with “At least you don’t….” when they feel like they are drowning is not helpful, it is mean. While I do not support people expecting an outpouring of support, from Facebook friends they have not seen since the third grade, everyone absolutely needs a few people, who will stand beside them, in their darkest hours and say, “This sucks, my friend. I will be here until it doesn’t suck anymore. And then together, we will dance and be grateful.” Many of my Christian brethren reading this will point to James and his “count it all joy when you suffer” speech”. But let’s get real people! You can have joy and peace that passes all understanding and still absolutely hate that life is just stinking hard sometimes! It does not help us to pretend that it is easy and we are so lucky to be faced with a lost marriage, a wayward child, an unexpected death, or worse. And when we require others to put on this mask, we miss an opportunity for relationship that is real, powerful and life-giving.

When gratefulness replaces our need for faith that God can miraculously work through a dire situation, to bring glory to Himself, we minimize the power available to us. We are saying that “this is it”: Our pain, our suffering, our missed opportunities, our disappointments are where we will exist forever, so therefore we better make it more attractive than it actually is. That is so limiting! When we embrace our hardships for what they are, we are better able to honestly move in a different direction. We can actually have real gratefulness on the other side because we will know the difference between the difficult times and the times of blessing. Maybe more importantly, we become more authentic and can relate to others in pain, organically, because we aren’t trying to pretty up our own lives so they are more palatable to others. We can be grateful for lessons learned, supportive friends and human resilience that enables us to endure. We can be grateful there is good in a world filled with bad. But we are not required to be grateful for car accidents, flooded basements, people talking behind our backs, lost jobs or any other yuck that comes our way.

I am fulfilled to the core when someone experiences, in counseling, a feeling of safety for authenticity. But I am also saddened that our culture inhibits our faith for God to work, in the real world, by muting our pleas for His intervention in our wrecked and needy lives. Gratitude is a beautiful attribute in a person but let’s be careful not to use it to manipulate and add hardship to the lives of those around us. Let’s not use it to avoid experiencing other real emotions that also provide growth and add to our humanity. Let us have gratitude for the good in our lives that helps us push through what we don’t prefer. Let us have gratitude for our individual blessings so that we can extend that and bless others. Let us be grateful that we have hope for things to come, and that we are able to offer this to those who feel hopeless.

Moriah Ventures, LLC