I spent the weekend at a retreat where I was a one-hour seminar speaker, talking about “Turning the Prism: Looking at the Circumstances of Your life Through God’s Lens.” I’ll be posting excerpts here the rest of the week.
Prior to speaking, I prayed, reviewed my notes and then realized a negative example I’d used often in my life. Riffing off 1 Thessalonians 5:18: “in everything give thanks for this is the Father’s will for you,” I have tried in difficult circumstances to find a way to thank God–and one of my means was wrong.
Twenty-five years ago when I was a young mom with two small boys living in the Connecticut woods with an old car and an aging house, my husband spent long months out to sea on a submarine. That left all the domestic problems to me. And I got a fair share.
(Indeed, three submarine deployments in a row, I got the unofficial prize, ‘wife with worst deployment.’)
I knew the Thessalonians passage and tried to find things to be thankful for, and finally hit upon a line I became well-known for within the community: “It could be worse. I could be the mother of ten children living in Lebanon worrying about food and cholera.”
People always laughed at that concept, and it helped me put my circumstances into a different frame. I was fortunate. I only had two children, my husband loved me, I had sufficient money and the car usually ran. Health care was provided by the US Navy, thank you.
But this weekend as I prayed about my talk, I realized at its heart the comment was wrong. For this attempt at thankfulness in difficult circumstances was based on shame.
Shame on you, Michelle. What are you doing complaining that the hurricane tossed your shed into a tree? It could be worse. You and your children could be huddled together in Beirut being shelled by Hezbollah.
I didn’t need shame in my life then, I was grappling with enough problems. I don’t need shame on my life now. Shame does not come from God. It comes from the liar and the thief–he who would rob us of our joy, peace, contentment, and in those circumstances, need to rely on God for peace.
I’ve come to see that a healthier response would have been not to compare my challenges to someone else’s and come out on top, but to recognize I was dealing with difficult things and it was okay to be unhappy.
I guess you could say I needed to own my feelings. Still do.
The better response, and one I’ve learned through working on my talk:
“Thank you, Lord, that nothing that happens to me and my family is outside of your love and care. Thank you that even though this circumstance in my life is hard and feels overwhelming, I can still trust that you love me and are working in my life through this. Help me to rest and trust you, with the circumstances in my life.”
And then, of course, I’d be free to scream.
How do you deal with being thankful in everything?
Tweetables
Dealing with shame–deserved or not. Click to Tweet
Being thankful in everything, even when it’s senseless. Click to Tweet
Great advice, Michelle. I teach a class called Search for Significance and one of its tenets is that God is not the author of shame. Yet we grow up hearing “Shame on you” and come to apply it to ourselves when what we need is grace. “Grace on you” is a good replacement for that term.
Love this post! I always focus on how that verse says IN everything give thanks–not FOR everything. I used to try to figure out how to be thankful for some really rotten stuff, but now I understand that I’m supposed to be thankful in spite of rotten stuff. I once heard a Christian writer point out that pain is pain. It doesn’t matter if someone else’s pain looks worse, my pain still hurts ME. That’s what I have to hand over to God . . .
Thanks for your comments Sarah and Julie.
In an interesting twist, as usual, when you teach on something you often get to experience it. I’ve had some frightening health news and I’m turning that prism so quickly it must be spinning!
I found myself going back to those old ways, “well, at least it’s not cancer,” and then stopped in my tracks to say, “No. Don’t go that route. Thank the Lord He is with you in the difficulties and will be with you all the way to the end.”
And I keep coming back to that again and again.
It’s wonderful we worship a God who will sustain us and love us through all our stumbles, errors, sobs and joys. Thanks be to God!