30 Days of Thanksliving

As I drove down the interstate heading back home to Orlando at the beginning of that November, it was looking to be a long month. In fact, it was looking to be a long several months. I had just said goodbye to my husband as he deployed to Bosnia where he was scheduled to stay until summer of the next year. While my ten year old daughter alternated between entertaining herself and sleeping in the back seat, I listened to a book on CD to try and keep myself alert and focused on the task at hand.

Jan Karon’s Mitford novels have always been favorites of mine. This was not my first exposure to this particular tale of Father Tim (In This Mountain, Jan Karon, 2002), but I felt the repetition of the story would be comforting and not distracting as I drove. As is often the case with rehearing a familiar story though, something struck me differently this time. Father Tim was learning a lesson in being thankful during the difficult seasons of life from 1 Thessalonians.

In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
1 Thessalonians 5:18 (KJV)

As I heard Father Tim learn the lesson of “in everything give thanks,” I realized that God was speaking to me. Yes, the months ahead were not looking particularly appealing. My heart was hurting and I was quite frankly afraid. Would I trust God enough to give thanks “in everything”? That seemed to be the challenge the Father was laying before me.

Upon my return home, I was greeted with the normal small catastrophes that greet many military spouses as quickly as the door closes behind the deploying service member. The funniest (now, it’s funny – it certainly wasn’t then) memory was sitting at the dinner table while wasps began to come in through the kitchen chandelier as we ate our meal. This was followed by a fore ray into the attic with one of the boys trying to balance across attic beams to hunt down and spray the offending wasp nest. Give thanks – really?? The only thing I knew how to do was just begin by simply obeying what I felt I had been told. “Thank you God for the wasps.” It felt really stupid, but obedience is often awkward, especially in the baby steps.

My circumstances by no means were changed. Rob was still very, very gone. I was still trying to balance what life looked like as a single parent with two boys in the house, homeschooling a daughter, and another son away at college. But something in my heart began slowly to change. Life did not seem as heavy. As I began to give thanks, my mind seemed to turn more frequently to the many positive things going on in my life and the lives of those around me. I was a little less grumpy and probably easier for the kids to live with, certainly more pleasant for my husband to hear from each day. The main difference was the peace that was seeping deeper and deeper into my soul as I focused on what I had, not what I lacked, trusting God to be good in all things that were coming our way during that season.

Who knew that six years later I would find myself in another November with my husband deployed a world away. So the challenge is once again renewed in my heart. Will I choose to obey God in His word and “in everything give thanks”? This month, I am issuing myself a challenge. I want to spend the next 30 days with an attitude of “thanksliving.” Every day, I will find at least one thing to be thankful for and write it down. Some days, it may be the obvious things like my great husband or awesome children. Some days, there may be wasps coming out of the ceiling. Whatever my day looks like, I want to choose an attitude of thanks.

Would you be willing to join me? What difference could it make in your life if you took God seriously and “in everything gave thanks”? I would like to challenge you. Grab a dollar store journal, a composition notebook or even a gum wrapper out of your purse and write down one thing each day for which you are giving thanks. Let’s see what God will do in our lives and hearts when we take Him at His word by “thanksliving.”