November 22, 2008 ~ Thanksgiving – Getting it Right

I received a call from a friend yesterday who, like me, has cancer.  We had a conversation that skirted all around that topic at first because it’s not one that is simple to ease into the conversation.  Finally we broached the subject (I can’t even remember how), and she shared with me how angry she feels.  How unfair it is to have such a devastating diagnosis and all the side orders of crumminess that come with it.  I commiserated.  It is crummy!  It is unfair! 

Then she told me that she didn’t think I’d understand those feelings.  “Why on earth would you think that?” I asked.  She told me that she’d been following my blog and she thought that I was one of those cancer patients who believed that their life was improved by it.  I was so surprised by what she said that I almost swallowed my gum!  I told her that she was going to have to explain how she got that impression from my blog, and she said that I was always talking about things I’d learned, and expressing gratitude, etc.

It caught me by surprise.  Maybe I haven’t been clear.  So I’m going to try to explain my thoughts on this subject here.  I have read some articles and blogs by women who say that breast cancer is the best thing that ever happened to them, and when I explore their thoughts on the subject it typically boils down to the fact that they have learned many deep things about themselves, and God, and others, through the course of their disease.  It’s true that this is a personal growth experience.  No doubt.  But the best thing that ever happened?  Well, I have no beef with their feeling that way – after all, it is their own personal journey.  Who am I to say it’s the wrong way to feel?  It’s just not how I feel. 

Cancer isn’t the best thing that’s ever happened to me.  In my experience, it is a hideous beast that attacked me unprovoked, and it’s one that I have gone to war with.  I am fighting back as hard as I can with every skill and tool I’ve been given.  Cancer has been hard on me, hard on my family, and I have had to discipline myself to find blessings along the way.  Let me say this emphatically: 

Cancer is not the blessing! 

However, having said that,

Cancer has not cancelled out every other blessing in my life either. 

I was in the hospital when I received my diagnosis.  In fact, I was in the hospital for two weeks and if you’ve ever been in the hospital for an extended period of time, you know that there is a lot of down-time.  That down-time was a blessing because it gave me a lot of time to pray, read scripture, and form a decision about how I wanted to be.  With cancer.  Something told me that if I didn’t make a decision, right then, about how I wanted to be, then I could easily become somebody who was overwhelmed by the enormity of the diagnosis and blinded to everything else that was light, or fun, or blessed, or loving.  And in the midst of that time, I was reminded of this scripture about thanksgiving.

Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

~ 1 Thess. 5:16-18

As you might imagine, I had the “pray continually” part down, because I was in a constant state of prayer for healing and peace.  Still am, and I am fortunate to know that many, many other believers have joined me in that sincere prayer.  So that left the other two directives: 

Be Joyful.  Give thanks.

Those were the two that I knew I was going to have to work on. 

And I sincerely wanted to get these three things right because I deeply wanted to be in God’s will.

Christians often ask, “How do I know if I’m in God’s will?”  Well, there you have it:  1 Thess. 5:16-18. 

That scripture is often misunderstood, and some believe (some even preach!) that it means that we are commanded to give thanks for the circumstance.  But it doesn’t say that.  It says to give thanks in the circumstance.  Here was my circumstance:  stage 4 breast cancer metastasized to the bone marrow, and a grave prognosis.  I can’t give thanks for that.  In fact, I am praying that the Lord will heal me.  I’m fighting that circumstance with my body, mind and spirit!  But I can give thanks while I am in that circumstance.  That is doable.  So, starting from my hospital bed, I began counting my blessings – and actively seeking them out.  This was my discovery, even in that sterile environment:  there are new ones every day!! 

God isn’t stingy with His blessings to us.  They are abundant and bountiful each and every day.

What is sometimes stingy, though, is our thanksgiving for those blessings.  And it’s wrong to be stingy with that for a couple of reasons.

1. If we desire to live within God’s will, we must have a spirit of thanksgiving – every day, not just on the last Thursday of November.
2. Giving thanks is the key to the other command in the scripture – joyfulness.

As I pondered, and was puzzled by, how to truly be joyful (always!) and not a faker-of-joy, I started on my project of blessing discovery and giving thanks for all of those blessings.  Then I discovered the answer. 

It is in the thanksgiving that I found true joy. 

Joy. Prayer. Thanksgiving (regardless of the circumstance.)  These are the will of God for us.  And they are interrelated.  It seems that one is dependent upon the other, and for me, the very first command of joy is impossible if I neglect the other two.  In fact, I don’t think any of the elements are possible without the others. 

I’m not joyful and thankful for the cancer.  But I am thankful in spite of my circumstance, and that brings joy.

When I was initially diagnosed, John and I later learned from the nurses that the doctor was puzzled by our reaction to the news.  He expected us to fall apart, to be devastated.  Our nurse told us that he said he didn’t know what to make of us and didn’t know if we really understood what he was telling us.  We understood.  There would be tears along the way, but we knew that just because we received bad news didn’t mean that there wasn’t a Higher Authority to appeal the decision to. 

I’m not a Pollyanna.  I understand my circumstance.  Fully.  I just choose, instead, to focus on the things that put me in God’s will.  Things that bring joy.  Blessings.  Healing. Thanksgiving.  Sometimes it is a difficult assignment; sometimes it’s not.  It is a discipline, but one that works to make me a better person (even one with cancer), and one that God is more pleased with.

I don’t know what your circumstance is.  Perhaps it is a similar health crisis.  Or divorce.  Or loneliness.  Or addiction.  Or a financial reversal.  Really, it doesn’t matter what it is. 

I challenge you to read and pray over how you can put 1 Thess. 5:16-18 into action in your circumstance, and see firsthand the faithfulness of God.   

Wouldn’t you like to find true joy?  True thanksgiving?  Wouldn’t you like to know that you are in the will of God?