In our home we preach a message of gratitude. When something goes the way one of us hoped it would we ask, “did you thank God?” Often when I thank my husband for the countless ways he serves and protects our home he will reply, “thank God, honey.” And I do. I do thank God for provision, protection, sustenance, and health, but this week has been a reminder to me of remembering to thank God when things don’t go my way.

I wrote yesterday that I don’t believe in coincidence, only God-incidence, and so the underbelly that I don’t always like to expose is, have I thanked Him when things don’t go my way?

When I consider gratitude in suffering, I come back to two examples of mourning in my life through the contrasting deaths of three critical people, who I loved dearly, and couldn’t have previously imagined my life without.

When my aunt, my dad’s sister, passed away unexpectedly, a downward spiral of alcohol abuse and selfish behavior followed. Though there were many factors that contributed, my behavior was not only harmful to me, but to my husband, and (at the time) our young daughter. Her death was the ignition to behaviors that were linked to sin patterns that resulted from years of abuse and suffering. Things hadn’t gone my way. Because of particular kinds of loss and hardship throughout my childhood, the specific grief of the death of a loved one was a trigger for me that ultimately caused me to believe that since I was hurting so badly, I could behave in whatever way was necessary for me to survive. The years that followed were devastating to my husband, our family, and left years of recovery in the wake.

My grandparents were pivotal to every aspect of my life. As a child, I remember lying awake in bed at night, crying until I fell asleep, over the thought of a world they would no longer be alive in. I naively believed into adulthood that they would somehow live forever, and never truly considered the reality that, one day, they would succumb to the same consequence of sin that every other living person will face. But, something drastic happened in the space between losing my aunt and losing my grandparents. I got saved.

My grandma was diagnosed with cancer in August of 2020. She was given a hopeful diagnoses and we expected her to be in remission by Christmas. She did make a full recovery when she was called home to the Lord on October 15, 2020. On December 6, 2021 my grandpa was hospitalized with Covid. On December 24, 2021 I waited on a phone call from my mom to let me know where they were moving him for recovery, as he had improved significantly and was nearly cleared for release. The morning of Christmas Eve she texted my brother and me to tell us we needed to come as quickly as we could to say goodbye.

We sung hymns at his hospital bedside and took turning holding his hand, watched as the ventilator was removed, and endured the agonizing hour of steadily decreasing breath until he was fully healed. He went home to be with the Lord at 4:15 that afternoon.

Even writing these words brings agony to my heart. A gut wrench of injustice and anger burns in my throat. But, as I drove home that Christmas Eve afternoon, I sobbed prayers of gratitude to the Lord for the healing He brought and the reunion my grandparents were experiencing at that very moment. My grandpa got to experience Christmas in Heaven that year, a celebration I desperately look forward to.

Nothing outwardly about me changed between these losses, but inwardly I’d been reborn. When my aunt died my suffering overcame me, driving me into behavior that was destructive to not only me, but to my family. When my grandparents died my suffering drove me to the cross where I thanked Jesus that because of His death, their physical deaths meant the start of their eternal life. Because Jesus died, they live. Because they trusted in Jesus’ death and resurrection they were given new bodies the moment they were absent from their earthly bodies and present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8).

That Christmas Eve I arrived home to my husband and three daughters, hugged and kissed them, and we began the process of grieving as a family that included no alcohol abuse, no destructive patterns of pain management, only the knowledge and hope that one day we’ll be reunited with those who are in Christ and have gone before us.

You can read more about the walk of losing my grandparents here: https://wellwateredwalk.org/2022/03/01/grace-to-grieve/ and https://wellwateredwalk.org/2022/04/21/grace-to-grieve-part-two/ and in the future I plan to write on the subjects of healing from toxic behavior through the hope found in God’s word. It is not my intent to convey that salvation magically erases years of sin patterns, struggle, and suffering; only that because of salvation, God was able to begin using trials as a means of bringing me into greater day by day obedience, ultimately relieving the enslavement to sin, and replacing it with hope and trust in His goodness.

Today is the day of salvation. If you haven’t trusted in Jesus, the only guarantor of our hope, trust in Him today. Believe that He died on the cross to pay a debt you could not pay, that by His blood alone you are granted the gift of eternal life and rest in the gratitude that peace provides.

Happy Friday! I’ll be resting this weekend, cherishing every moment with my family, and will rejoin you Monday.

God bless.