Can Disappointment and Gratitude Co-exist?

November is National Gratitude month and it’s no surprise that it coordinates with Thanksgiving Day. Articles, blogs, and classroom teachers give ideas to remember and appreciate what is positive in our lives all month long.

Years ago, when my extended family gathered for Thanksgiving, at the suggestion of our kindergartener (who is now in college), we went around the table and shared one thing or person that we were thankful for. Family and friends were what mattered most.

In November, we see TV movies that show families gathered around a perfect table setting complete with a designer centerpiece. I wonder if the golden-brown turkey set to carve, is real. If the movie characters had a struggle in relationships, ten minutes before the movie ends, all is well. A person who wasn’t expected to travel showed up at the door. I’m sure you could recall a scene or two. It’s the season for gratitude and everyone loves a happy ending.

But a page from our life isn’t always filled with smiles and hugs or have a happy ending. When Thanksgiving dinner is modest, a relationship is tense, and family is scattered around the country and not at your table, can we go to another level beyond what we can see, touch, and experience?

Maybe it’s hard to go around the table and say we are thankful. When your family, not just on Thanksgiving Day, doesn’t look like what you had imagined; when life is interrupted with challenges, it may be hard to express gratitude. We live with the pain of a relationship gone sour or a friend or family member has passed on to heaven, and we see an empty chair. Or a teen or adult we love who has lost his way and is suffering consequences. Maybe after several months, health improvement doesn’t seem to come, the promised job didn’t materialize.

In 2 Kings 5, we read about Naaman, a Syrian general with leprosy. You’ll have to read the whole account, but a young servant girl in custody had heard about Elisha who she knew could heal Naaman. He traveled to meet Elisha. Rather than put his hand of healing on him, Elisha told Naaman to go down to the Jordan River and wash seven times. It was an unusual approach, and Naaman initially resisted, but he obeyed. It worked, and Naaman was healed God’s way. God’s power was demonstrated in an unconventional way.

We often pray for something that we may desperately want or need. Perhaps we long for reconciliation with someone who has rejected us. We may be lonely and want to know we are loved. We may face a day with no plans and hope we’ll hear from someone—a phone call or text to know that we are thought about and noticed.

He doesn’t move on a person’s heart to desire reconciliation. He doesn’t place a person or an activity into our life to alleviate the loneliness. He may not offer a miraculous medical report. The hoped-for job doesn’t come.

You may be looking ahead at a holiday season that holds an unknown or circumstances you wish were otherwise. Your friends have commitments and your family lives far away. Travel is out of the question. Maybe you’ve lost a loved one or your children have grown up and the house is empty. You’re re-working your budget for the third time. This year looks different, perhaps painful.

What then? God may choose to answer in other ways. 

Sometimes God wants us, like Naaman to listen and pay attention. He may ask us to carry out what He tells us, though difficult or inconvenient and respond by looking for and to Him. He sends Himself through His Word, reminding us that we are deeply loved. He knows everything about us, and above all, He is near and present. In Naaman’s mind, one touch from Elisha would have done it. It was unconventional for Naaman to have to do something to see God’s power. But that is what he saw when he went to the Jordan River.

Today, we may be looking for something tangible to fill a void in our discouraging and for some, even devastating days. God may not send a solution,  something unusual or the happy ending, but He always sends Himself.

Just as God didn’t want the focus on Elisha, but on Himself, He gives us that opportunity to trust and meet with Him too.

How have you seen God meet you in a difficult place? How did it generate gratitude?