POWER IN THANKFULNESS
It is that time of year again when, in the stores, the holiday of Thanksgiving gets lost between Halloween and Christmas. TV stations have already been showing Christmas movies. If you know me very well, you know that I have been watching them. I even have been singing with the characters those beloved Christmas songs. My son, Aaron, lives with me. He has had to maneuver shows he wants to watch around my recorded movies this time of year. One time when I was singing along with the movie, my sons golden retriever dog, looked at me like I had lost my mind. Well, if truth be told, I probably have! Even I have jumped ahead of our holiday of Thanksgiving.
The origin of our American Thanksgiving is from 1621 between the pilgrims and Indians, proclaiming the thankfulness of a bounty harvest and the blessing of these two different types of people living and working together. But if we really think about this special day, we need to realize that our God instituted this day many years before. Not only this day, but God tells us to be thankful continuously, every day for everything. Ephesians 5:20 says “giving thanks always for all things to God the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 says, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
There are so many types of subjects about thankfulness that we could think about together, but I want to center a few thoughts about the words in the verses above that I have underlined.
I have had some tough, worried, stressful, tiring times in my life. Honestly, the first reaction to those feelings was not to be thankful for those situations. It is easier to say why me? Why am I in physical pain all the time-why am I going through this situation. I have tried to be obedient to God, why is He allowing this to happen to me?
Let me share a time in my life that I asked those questions above. How God helped me to be thankful, even in the middle of my storm. Those of you who know my story, know that my husband was very sick, mentally and physically for ten years before his passing. Our daughter was a teenager part of this time. I was working two, sometimes three, jobs, gone most days twelve hours. Besides this, I dealt with the many stressful days of asking God, why this was all happening to our family. There were many days, if it wasn’t for my precious daughter, I did not even want to go home. What would I find when I did get home? My husband, during this time, was in a two year, everyday all day, deep depression. Usually when I would get home, he would be in bed asleep. There were a few times, I would come home and he would have done laundry or fixed a meal but those days were far and few between. I was doing everything! He was just home all the time. Playing solitaire and sleeping! I did not feel I could talk to him about our finances. He would usually, take all the failures of our finances on himself and go back to bed. He did not bathe or shave very often. It was such a difficult time for me and our daughter. I started having bitterness in my heart. Just being around him, even just driving home, caused me to feel that my chest was suffocating the very breath out of my lungs. The feeling that as soon as I saw him, my chest was churning into and pressing into by body and heart. Like a boulder was sitting on my chest. I knew this feeling was biblically wrong. (Hebrews 12:15 & Ephesians 4:31) In Acts 8:23, bitterness is even called a poison.
But how could I fix it? How could I heal my heart? He was not changing. But was my husband really the problem? No, it was my heart that was bitter. I turned to God. Is that how you do things? You stay in a wrong feeling of your heart until you reach out to God who is the first person, we should have turned to in the first place? I prayed that He would help me to know how to get these feelings and attitude out of me. How I could be around my husband and live my life without these feelings of bitterness? After praying, I realized I needed to be thankful for my husband. How in the world would I do that? God how in the world will that help me? That is too hard! HE was the reason I was having these feelings in the first place! That is when I started a gratitude journal about my husband. I tried to think about one good thing about him each day and I prayed all day thanking God for that particular thing. I remember one day; I could not think of even one good thing about him. (This is probably when he decided to stop his depression medicine, which had taken us months to get a helpful combination. Not only that, but he decided to stop ALL his other meds, because he was feeling better.) The only thing I could think of was that I was thankful he was alive. Wow, that is so sad to think about, isn’t it? But I started praying in thanksgiving, and I realized that feeling of bitterness was slowly and surely leaving my heart. I saw him and the reasons he had been and was in, my life. From time to time, that pressure on my chest would start up again and I would thank God for him. Pushing that bitterness away.
How do you think that I was able to do that? Because there is POWER in a prayer of thankfulness! We become closer to God. We become more positive. We remember who is really in charge. Our focus comes off of self and more on the good things, the blessings, God has given us. Thankfulness helps push out the lies the devil is trying to make us believe. Thankfulness gives us peace! Thankfulness heals us physically, as well as spiritually!
Philippians 4:6-7 reads “Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” When we come before God in prayer, whatever the reason, we need to include thanksgiving. It has the power to give us peace, helps to focus our minds and hearts back onto what is the important part of the situation. How does thankfulness bring us that peace? We cannot understand how that happens. Our God is true to His promises. He has so much love for us that there is no way we can understand the healing power of thanksgiving. But I know for a fact that there IS healing power by being thankful.
Thankfulness should be an everyday occurrence in our lives. It should naturally flow from our hearts, especially in the rough times. When those tough times come into our lives, and they will, we have to be thankful in the middle of that storm. The storm may be still raging inside our lives and hearts, but the power in thankfulness is this. Our situation may not change, but we change. Our attitude shows us that, when the storms rage, we have the faith and assurance from God that He is by our side. I have found that when I look back, to that time I talked about above, I realize that God was there all the time helping me to make it through. Allowing things to happen, that ended up being a blessing. Helping me, through my thankfulness, to bring peace into my heart.
The next time you feel the pressures of this life about to strangle the very breath out of you, stop. Pray. Be thankful in every situation. Whether good or bad. It will give you much needed peace. My situation had not changed but my heart had all those years ago. Don’t be like the ten lepers who Jesus healed in Luke 17. Only one returned to thank Jesus for healing. Give thanks in ALL situations and in EVERYTHING.
So, this Thanksgiving, look around at those precious faces at your dinner table and realize that God has given you every one of them. There have been hard times, but God has helped you through. Make this Thanksgiving more than just thankfulness for the obvious blessings. But also, for the blessings that God has given you through the hard times. For those of you who will not be sitting down at a dinner table with family or loved ones, remember that God is right by your side helping you take one step at a time. Center your heart on the good things in your life. Be thankful! Invite others to eat with you who do not have any loved ones in their lives or will be alone. Reach out to them. It will lift your spirit and theirs.
Don’t “hop” over the holiday of Thanksgiving. Because this holiday helps us remember to have thanksgiving in our hearts, centering our thoughts onto what is truly important: God is faithful in His promises. God gives us hope. God gives us peace. God is love. It is not about me, but about God.
Thankfulness towards my husband, helped me to remember there is good in every situation and had healing power over my heart; no matter how hard it was. Thankfulness in the storm, healed my heart!
Psalm 9:1, “I will praise (thank) You, O Lord, with my whole heart; I will tell of all Your marvelous works. I will be glad and rejoice in You, I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High.”
Have a blessed Thanksgiving! THERE IS TRULY POWER IN THANKFULNESS!
Till next time.
Keela