Gratitude is a Cat Four Hurricane

When You’ve Lost Something. Again.

The day started off all wrong. The van that provides my husband’s way-too-early ride to the dialysis center got a flat tire. I hadn’t had even the first sip of my coffee before I had to throw on clothes and drive him myself. After I dropped him off for his nearly four-hour treatment, I may have said a few bad words at being inconvenienced.

We’re reminded so often not to compare our lives with others, but when life throws a curveball, perspective helps. I was grumpy at having to interrupt my newspaper-coffee-wake-up-time. My husband, on the other hand, was about to have two ginormous (I am not kidding) needles plunged into his arm for hours while a very complicated machine cleansed his blood. And I’m whining about losing early morning me time.

Don’t get me wrong—your hurts and my hurts, losses and calamities are terrible. Sorrow, grief and complaints are necessary emotions. I weep with anyone whose loss has roasted them over a fiery pit and then spit them out. I know people whose loved one struggles with a debilitating stroke, or opioid addiction, or stage four cancer. I know people whose depression, anxiety and trauma forces them to weigh the pros and cons of staying alive another day. Friends who’ve lost a husband, a daughter, a son, a mother.

But if you’re like me, you sometimes lose sight of what really matters before we shuffle off this mortal coil. That’s when I drag my sorry self out of the abyss and try to find something—anything—to be grateful for.

I am not a Pollyanna, Little Miss Sunshine type. If anything, I not only see my glass half-empty—there’s a dead bug floating in it. Yet in this season of loss and skating toward my older age, I’m beginning to see why my grandmother always looked for a silver lining.

Silver linings point you toward gratitude.

Gratitude is not trying to soften your horrible plight into something palatable. It’s not about being happy you won the booby prize or thankful you didn’t have a tree fall on your house today. The reason I seek gratitude in the face of tragedy is so that God can get in.

See the love all around you, I seem to hear. I’m everywhere, in every wondrous thing.

In sorrow and grief and just plain entitled indignation, I tend to nail plywood to every window. Every positive outlook is battened down—the better to avoid more hurt and misery. I’m the one who ignored the evacuation orders and now hunkers down in my bathtub. The hurricane barrels toward my heart until I shiver with dread. My best defense against terrible loss is to lock the doors and hope the roof doesn’t fly off.

But the holy waits patiently outside.

God gets that I can be petty, self-righteous and sure I have it worse than anyone on earth. That’s not what keeps God out though. My Maker smiles as I rail against the forces of evil and by-the-way, God, why are You allowing this awful thing to happen? Like, don’t you care about suffering? My suffering, in particular? Wave the wand, already. Make everything perfect.

The dead air tells me that’s not what God has in mind.

A part of me wants to sulk and eat sour grapes—see, toldja God doesn’t love me best. But there, in the stillness, the eye of the hurricane settles over my heart. The message speaks in the silence. God wants to be with us all the time. The love is deep and wide and bigger than whatever life can throw at us.

And if I’m smart enough to be grateful for that kind of enduring love, a sacred storm surge rushes over me, drowning me in light. With love that will never leave you, I can ride out any storm. OK I still grumble and feel put-upon on early mornings that go awry. A small corner of me still wants magical healings, no heartbreak, and perfect white teeth.

God wants into my heart more fully, but as long as I’m resentful or entitled or keep the windows boarded up, God waits. See the love all around you, I seem to hear. I’m everywhere, in every wondrous thing.

When my eyes are finally open (caffeine helps), I start to understand how to get to gratitude. All I need to do is look around me. Hear birdsong. Draw strength from a giant redwood I visit regularly. Watch a cloudy morning give way to sunshine, smell the last rose before colder temperatures send it to sleep. Laugh a little, too.

While my husband sits in a chair for more than three hours with those huge needles in his arm, I scan the horizon for things to love anew. When I look down at my feet, I have to laugh. In my crabby haste to get the man to his appointment with blood cleansing, I put on two different shoes. Luckily, God’s laughing with me, not at me. That’s a silver lining if I ever saw one.