Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays but this particular year, I feel dread just thinking of sharing what I am thankful for. I could even forgo the feast and small group gathering just so I wouldn’t have to share. However, God doesn’t always let me take the easy way out and I feel it would glorify Him more if I told you what I was thankful for.
3 Thanksgivings
November of 2019, I had been out of a job for 9 months and still hadn’t gotten over my first relationship. It was so hard to share as I would look at the couples in the room and feel so alone. I felt like I was in a pit and that I could not get out. I vaguely remember saying that I was thankful for the suffering because I know it helped me cling onto Christ.
November of 2020, I felt so blessed. I had a job, I purchased a house in Dallas that past June and I had started dating someone in September 2020. It seemed like things were finally on track and I was finally getting somewhere in life. God had blessed me so much and I was so thankful.
Then came November 2021, I had taken a job back in LA hoping to make the same relationship work and hoping for opportunities to learn in my career. However, a week after taking the job, God allowed the door on my relationship to be closed. All hope had faded and this time it wasn’t easy to be thankful for the suffering. The last majority of my remaining my friends in their 30s had a serious relationship, gotten engaged or married. I was afraid of even going to my bible study Friendsgiving as I had brought my ex last year and couldn’t fandom not breaking down when I was so thankful in front of them last year.
Here are some things that I am thankful for 2021:
- God has allowed me to date twice in my 30s and my story isn’t finished yet.
- I asked God to let me know His will for my relationship and God answered.
- Even though things didn’t work out, God answered my prayers for certain qualities I was looking for in a boyfriend.
- God answered my prayer for a job back in LA, even though the purpose of finding the job was later lost.
- God answered my prayer earlier this year to work on project with user testing and gave me a new manager that promoted me to a Senior UX Designer.
Finally, here are some things I am currently wrestling with and learning.
- My feelings don’t tell the reality of God’s love. “My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end.” – Lamentations 3:20-22
- The wilderness is a training ground “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trails of various kinds. for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete. lacking nothing.” – James 1:2-4
- When I think less of myself and more of Christ, I feel less painful. “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the spirit.” -Romans 8:5
- God is writing a story I cannot see… “But it is written, what no eye has seen, no ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him.” – 1 Corinthians 2:9
- God always gives me what is best… “Yes, the Lord will give what is good and our land will yield its increase.” – Psalm 85:12 “For the Lord God is a sun and shield, the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly” – Psalm 84:11
Do you also find it hard to give thanks this season?
Walking Not By Sight 