3 Reasons to be Grateful in Grief

To be clear: this is not a spin on the nauseating cliche that pain is some kind of privilege, or the hackneyed notion that the greater agony you endure, the greater blessing you’ll receive. No, I promise I wouldn’t write something like that.

Also, you’ll notice this post is not about being grateful FOR grief, but rather, being grateful IN grief. That single preposition is, as Mark Twain would say, the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug.

I’m not sure anyone could ever be sincerely grateful for their grief (nor do I think they should be). We don’t appreciate the tornado that destroys our house or the car accident that breaks our bones. Grief is much the same.

But, being grateful in grief is something fundamentally different. I assure you that grief and gratitude can amiably coexist, but that isn’t my reason for writing.

Not really.

I’m writing because a grateful heart is a resilient heart. A heart of gratitude, of thanksgiving, is much better-equipped to manage the torrents of a grief journey than a calloused, bitter, angry heart. But even more important than that – your gratitude has the power to make your pain productive.

A thankful vessel is a willing vessel.

And willing vessels change the world.

—

My 3 Reasons for Gratitude in Grief

1) Grief is the absence of something that was once present.

I once read that grief is the price we pay for love. Put another way, it’s the risk we take when we fall into it. And while I don’t think either of these statements fully captures the essence of love and loss, they echo the point I’m making.

I am grateful in my grief because it reminds me of a gift I once received. It reminds me that the gift was real, and that I opened it. It reminds me of the sights, smells, and splendor of the thing, of the existence I once bore, of the privilege that was mine.

Let me illustrate it this way:

If you had come to me at 5:05 PM on September 15th, 2015, mere moments after Kailen died, and asked me to do it all over again – to relive finding the lump, receiving the terminal diagnosis, enduring the agonizing battery of medical testing, the scores of sleepless nights in hospitals all across the country, watching my precious wife suffer and emaciate, suffering along with her, the total forfeiture of youth, the meteoric anguish of cancer pain, the soul-deep abolition of every hope and dream we ever had, loss upon loss upon loss, and yes, eventually, feeling her spirit leave the room and watching her body being laid to rest.

I would have looked at you and said, simply: “Please.”

Because it was a gift, you see. And I opened it.

My grief reminds me.

2) Pain teaches us how to see in the dark.

Until the age of 23, I knew nothing of pain. I was a small-town kid from Kentucky with a Mayberry life. It wasn’t perfect, but it was close.

Then my 22-year-old wife was diagnosed with stage IV cancer.

And Mayberry crumbled.

Suddenly, my eyes were opened to a world I had never seen before. It was like God had used a cancer diagnosis to finally turn on the lights. To be frank, it was utterly terrifying. I was shell-shocked and broken beyond anything I thought possible; my foundation seemed to be shifting beneath my feet. So many things were changing.

And it’s taken me years to understand it wasn’t all bad.

As I discussed in my previous post, A Benevolent Chaos, pain produces perspective.  Our brokenness makes us useful to God. It wasn’t until I broke that I was truly able to empathize with others, to recognize and understand suffering, to anticipate and accommodate the needs of the hurting.

When God turned the lights on in my life, He taught me to see in the dark.

Now it’s my responsibility to fill the darkness with light. And maybe it’s yours, too.

3) Remember who the author is.

The crushing weight of loss often leads us to believe our story is over. In fact, I’m sure there are times when you’ve wished it was. I know I have.

But lucky for both of us, we’re not the author.

The author of your story, and mine, is the same God that spoke life into the universe, the God of eucatastrophe, for whom all pain is construction material. He knows the hurt, for He too has experienced it, and yet instructs us to give thanks in all circumstances (1 Thessalonians 5:18).

Yes, you read that correctly – we are to give thanks, even in this present madness we call grief.

Why? Why would God, our author, make such an unreasonable request?

Because He knows that thankful vessels are willing vessels, and willing vessels make versatile and heroic protagonists.

And, of course, they change the world.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! While the holiday season is unquestionably one of the most challenging times of year for a grieving heart, please know I am praying for the simple joys to be amplified and the ever-present pain to be muted. May your grateful heart be a resilient one, and may you see in the dark.

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Photo Credit: BHoffert (Flickr Creative Commons)