Why I'm Struggling with the "Gratefulness" Concept

     Thanksgiving. It marks the beginning of a season of traditions, family, and food. It's the time of year when we're especially grateful for our blessings - even those extra-crazy family members. A time of reflection and warm fuzzies. Of celebration and contentment. Of sincere goodwill among all the great majority of random passers-by.

     In Sunday School yesterday, we considered gratefulness. We discussed how it is often the foil, in the Bible, to sin (Romans 1:21), and how its simple expression can completely change one's perspective and attitude. We listed several daily "taken-for-granted" aspects of our lives for which we ought to remember to give thanks (health, cleaning supplies, clothing). We touched on the fact that grief and thankfulness are not mutually exclusive.

     But what I didn't volunteer in the course of our discussion was that, for me lately, the emotion which follows gratefulness most closely is guilt. In the evenings, climbing shivering-ly into bed (we have heat, but I have a sis that sleeps with her window open), I whisper a quick thanks to God for thick, flannel sheets. Almost immediately, though, I'm ashamed of my opulent life in which I'm coddled by flannel sheets which I had ample money to buy, a quilt sewn by my mum because she's alive, healthy, and loves me, and the thick wool blanket I bought while visiting Scotland several years ago on pleasure. What am I doing with such luxuries? Is it right to live like this, with people around the world in such want? When my own brothers and sisters in Christ have had their possessions confiscated? While they cling to God, am I clinging to comfort?

     This past weekend, hurrying to my car after a concert, I passed a homeless man, arranging his belongings around him for the evening. Ice is in the air, and for a moment I wondered if I should give him my scarf, but I held back. "This isn't just a random scarf. Mum made it for me. It'd be different if it was one I'd bought for myself..." - my mind flurried with these comforts as I quickened my stride, but are they true? Thankful as I was for the warmth in which I was wrapped, I walked right past someone who probably would have benefited greatly from my "blessing". Is gratefulness genuine - God-honoring - if it results in hoarding? Do I really understand imitating Christ if I receive things and fail to turn around and give them away again?

     These questions are genuine; I don't know the answers. I know guilt is never from my Father, so of course that is misplaced, but what should my response be when inundated with all my belongings and reminded of the destitution of others? Is it right, as a Christian, to live in comfort, in excess of basic needs, while others do not? How can it not feel like a mockery, a callousness to suffering, to sit in our warm homes surrounded by comforts and thank God devoutly for all our "stuff"? Are we grateful, or glorying in gluttony?

     "[Giving] thanks in all circumstances", as the Scriptures instruct, is not the same as "giving thanks for all circumstances." I think this is how people can be grateful even in the face of the ravages of sin. Death, disease, devaluation of life - these realities are not how life was meant to be; they are not what God pronounced "good"; they are the results of sin, not the blessings of God. But the grateful person  gains a perspective beyond his immediate pain, grief, shame, or despair. He knows that "yet God sits enthroned," that because of His multitudinous grace, things will be brought together for good, whether the individual lives to see that good or not (somewhat like Hebrews 11:13).

     I'm not quite sure how, yet, but I feel the above thoughts are the beginning of my answers. That while I can give thanks for flannel sheets, or warm scarves, my habit of gratefulness should not actually be tied to physical comforts - or even necessities - but to an awareness of who I am in God's sight, and yet what He did for me. If my value is not in possessions, or health, or friends, and yet I am grateful, what changes in my lifestyle?

     This doesn't answer the persistent, discomforting feeling that it's wrong to live in such ease, to not be giving everything but the bare minimum away; I want to know how I should respond.

     How do you practice gratefulness? Do you feel guilty giving thanks for comforts and extras? How do you resolve your comforts with the great needs in the world - particularly those of our persecuted brothers and sisters?

Photo 1: LABabble. Fall Leaves. 18 October 2009. Flickr Creative Commons.
Photo 2: ryry17. Poverty. 28 December 2007. Flickr Creative Commons.

To Have a Broken Heart

     We're a world full of broken hearts. Tragic losses, disappointing relationships, unrealized dreams - poets and songwriters thrive upon words which express our human pain. Bookstores abound with how-tos for overcoming grief, realizing or recreating life goals, or moving on from the scarring end of a relationship. We gather strength from the sympathy of others, confidence in the steps of those who have gone before us. Because if we mortals share one thing, it is the disappointment of our expectations. We hope for more than we can achieve; we plan our lives, oblivious to our lack of control; we expect our loves to be returned in kind.

     I've been struck by how often I hear someone referring to being "brokenhearted". Exaggerations and forms of expression aside, heart-wrenching pain surrounds us, always. Children in sin, loved ones leaving this world, friendships being abandoned - these sorrows are not strangers to us, or those we walk beside each day.

     But are these heartbreaks the cracking of our being, or an exposure of the holes? What if our dreams were to fill in gaps that are intrinsically missing from our existence? What if our love has become a desperate search to find the perfect pieces for our gaping hearts? What if it is sin, not circumstances, which crushes us so?

 

   What if I am, in my very essence, broken?

     The pain of which we speak when we bemoan a broken heart is terribly real, but the repetition of this word - "heartbroken" - has challenged my definition. To be brokenhearted, I've realized, doesn't mean that I was whole and something - or someone - shattered me, because I'm already shattered. Incomplete. Sick. In need of repair. Rather, seasons of "brokenness" or heartache are poignant moments in which the scales fall from my eyes, and I realize who I am.

     This isn't something "God did to me", but an unveiling of myself: a broken, sin-smeared individual in desperate need to be fixed and filled-in by her Savior. Sometimes I try to help, thinking I understand how to make myself whole, thinking being sick means I know the cure, but this only results in flimsy life pillars which must in turn be demolished to allow for proper supports. These demolitions too, as I say, "break my heart," and since I've thus supported my hopes and affections, I suppose they do. But only in proportion to the expectations I've placed upon the work of my own hands.

     Don't misunderstand me, though. Our pain, what we call "brokenhearted-ness" is not because our loves, hopes or dreams were wrong - although we should be daily evaluating them. Nor are they because God ruined us, or delights in our pain - though He does make everything work for good. We are broken because we are full of failings in a sin-saturated world, and we feel the vacuum of this incompleteness most acutely in moments of barefaced loss. Sometimes our loss is caused by sin in the world - death, betrayal, need - and sometimes by sin in ourselves - idols, pride, misplaced affections, disobedience. But being forced to acknowledge these shattered pieces does not break my heart. It reminds me of my need to be made whole.

     So to those acutely aware of their broken hearts today: I am crying for you. My heart hurts for you. Let me pray for and with you. Yet, in this season, in this your time of seeing chips and shards and cracks, savor who God reveals Himself to be. As you throw yourself before His merciful throne, staggering under your burden, realize that this is an attitude we should cultivate: the lamenting of sin, of pain, of imperfection. It is only through this discipline that He can work to heal far more than our temporary woes; He will cure our thorough incompleteness. After all, He has come to "bind up the brokenhearted."

     And that means all of us.


Photo 1: Skley, Dennis. Broken Heart 294/366. 20 October 2012. Flickr Creative Commons.
Photo 2: Skley, Dennis. Pain of a broken heart. 21 August 2011. Flickr Creative Commons.
Photo 3: Vortexas32. IMG_2625. 29 March 2012. Flickr Creative Commons.