I was raised to be thankful. When I was a little girl, my mother gave me an album by another little girl named “Marcy”. Marcy had a song that was my favorite, and I would sing it along with her. The chorus went like this, “Count your blessings/ name them one by one/ count your many blessings/ see what God has done! Count your blessings/ name them one by one/ and it will surprise you what the Lord has done! ” I was taught to say grace at every meal, at home and at school, before consuming my food: “Thank you for the world so sweet/ thank you for the food we eat/ thank you for the birds that sing/ thank you God for everything. Amen.” And I was taught, indeed it was a practice in my Bahamian culture, to say “thank you” whenever someone gave me something, no matter how small or insignificant it may have been.
As I grew older and into adulthood, my words of thankfulness did not mature into an attitude of gratitude; thanksgiving was still a matter of lip service for me. I would thank God for my food, and then proceed to complain about the meal and, worse yet, to throw away the bits that did not satisfy my palate. And I didn’t have an interest in counting my blessings; I was too busy feeling sorry for myself because of what I did not have or what was not going right for me. However, I believed that good manners would take me around the world, so I was careful always to say “thank you” to people for their every gift or gesture of goodwill.
Then several years ago, I read one of David’s psalms, and the first verse of Psalm 92 arrested me; it challenged my complacent yet hypocritical attitude toward thanksgiving:
“It is good to praise the LORD
and make music to your name, O Most High,
to proclaim your love in the morning
and your faithfulness at night “
I asked myself: Was David saying that if I take the time, every evening, to look back over the day, I would see how God has been caring for me? If this was indeed true, then what an incredibly loving God He is, and what an incredibly ungrateful person I am. I decided to monitor God, or as David more eloquently put it, “to taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8). I started to keep a journal. Each morning, I recorded my concerns, needs, and requests. And I offered God some advice on how to deal with each one. And each evening, before retiring to bed, I recorded what transpired that day, namely the people I met and any advice and encouragement they gave me; the lessons I learned about healthy living; the bills I was able to pay; and the special writings I encountered.
About one year had passed when I realized the truth of God’s loving kindness and faithfulness to me. I was moved to tears. God had responded to every concern, need, and request that I had put to Him (and He had ignored all my advice to my benefit and to His glory). I was amazed as I flipped back through my journal. Page after page, I saw where He answered my need for money, my request for healing, my desire for guidance, and my anxiety about my future. Had I not been keeping a record of God’s faithfulness, I would not have known how faithful He was to me. He was indeed an incredibly loving God, and I was an incredibly ungrateful person. There was only one way I could respond to God’s love, and that was with gratitude.
The words of thanks which used to come only from my lips now flow from my heart. I am thankful, so very thankful.
I am thankful for life and for my life. To be thankful is to live in the understanding that I belong to God, who takes seriously His responsibility to take care for me. He will not and cannot disown me. He will not and cannot leave me to my own devices. I can look to Him in all circumstances and He will respond to me. Therefore, I can trust God with my life. To be thankful also is to live in obedience to Him. I recall my pleas to Him for healing a few years ago. I had heard people testify of being healed instantly, and I expected that God would deal with me in the same way. He did not. Instead God directed me make gradual modifications to my lifestyle: to exchange my stressful job for a home-based profession; to take out some carbs and the junk food from my diet and add more beans and veggies; to take good supplements daily; to drink lots more water each day; to walk at least 30 minutes per week; to forgive the persons who had hurt me in the recent past; and to retire to bed each evening by 7p.m. I experience His goodness when I live as He directs me.
So when I say that I am thankful, no longer am I describing what I say when something good happens to me; I am really talking about how I live. I still say grace at mealtime, but not merely with words; I try to eat the right foods in the right portions, and without complaining about or wasting any of it. I count my blessings each day by not bemoaning what I cannot do but by busying myself with what good things I can do. And I say thank you to people by taking the time to share in their joys and pains. I want a lifestyle of gratitude. And I know now that the key to gratitude is in tasting and seeing that God is good. Let Him be in the foods we taste and the people we see this Thanksgiving holiday.
