In All Things Give Thanks

Psalm 100. A psalm for giving grateful praise.4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. 5 For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations. 3 Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

There is always something to be thankful for. Always. Even now in your grief. I have changed the sentence order in the Psalm to emphasize how this can be. You are invited to enter His gates and to do so with a thankful heart. The way this is possible at all is in the knowing that He is God and He made you and me and we are His sheep, under His care. Even while you are grieving the death of your precious child, there is some little thing for which you can give thanks.

A kind word from your child’s nurse. The effort the doctor spent to save your child, even though he was pretty sure her life would end. A meal someone brought you that night you couldn’t imagine finding something to eat. The time you didn’t run out of gas. The way someone came to just listen. There were probably many times people came and didn’t really minister to your needs at the moment, but there were the few moments that were just right.

Be thankful for the colors in the sky at dawn. Or for a perfect tulip or a rose. Or for chocolate!

Or for your child. You got to be his mom or dad. What a gift that was! To know that child and to be allowed to instruct him, to watch her dance with delight.

Even in your grief, when you have so much pain and so many doubts, there are some little things you can give thanks for. I’m thankful you are there and that you want to figure out how to survive this. I pray for you as you seek how to make a life for yourselves in the new normal of your universe.

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Colossians 3:17 Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. I Thessalonians 5:16-18.

This little string of 3 commands Paul sent the Christians in Thessalonica follows the passage in chapter 4 about grieving, but not hopelessly (I Thessalonians 4:13-14). We have hope because Jesus died and rose again. Therefore you can, actually, give thanks to God for that and for the little blessings that come to you, even in your grief. There is always some little thing for which you can be thankful. Try to have a blessed day of giving thanks.