Up until two months ago, I thought I had a pretty good handle on the concept of gratitude. Give me any day, good or bad, and I could find something for which to give thanks.
But just three weeks into quarantine, all I seemed capable of was grumbling. One evening at dinner, my prayer was, “Lord, I know I should pray for a better attitude, but I really just want to keep having a pity party for myself.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t have experience with difficult times. The life numbing grief and corresponding depression from my brother-in-law’s suicide was the reason I had become pretty good at gratitude in the first place.
After 8 dark months in the midst of raising a newborn and a toddler, a friend encouraged me to read One Thousand Gifts. Ann Voskamp’s words challenged me to find the eucharisteo, that which to be thankful for, every day, all day long.
And it worked. Over the next year, my depression lifted and by the time five years passed, I had etched down over 5000 reasons to be grateful.
But years pass. Habits, even good ones, slip away. I stopped choosing to focus on the good and instead could only see “what I didn’t have”.
During the night after I uttered my ridiculous but honest thoughts to God, I woke up from sleep to hear the words “gratitude over grumbles”.
For the next five weeks, my brain tried hard to find good, but my heart refused. Whines and complaints continued to fill my days and Jared’s ear every evening. Nothing was good enough and I was so.over.it.
Thankfully, God used a desolate moment of washing dishes in solitude to speak to me.
He reminded me that he wasn’t asking me to love my circumstances.
He wasn’t asking me to enjoy every moment of these long quarantine days.
He was asking me to find something good, something to be thankful for.
Our job is not to be grateful because our circumstances are wonderful but to be grateful in spite of our circumstances.
If we keep waiting for perfect moments, situations, relationships before giving thanks, then we miss out on appreciating all the blessings that surround us, right now, in the everyday small moments of life.
And while gratitude at times might be felt, it is only when we choose it as a verb – as an action –whether through writing it down or verbally reminding ourselves – that our lives are changed, that depression can be lifted, and that we can make it through one.more.day of quarantine.