Thank You For The Broken Things

"Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus."

1 Thessalonians 5:18

As we approach Thanksgiving I often find myself meditating on what being in a season of thankfulness truly means. 

It is often easy to think of all the good things in your life. Easy to count your blessings instead of sheep. Easy to see the goodness of God in all of the wonderful aspects of your life.

But what about the hard things? The dark things? The loneliness. the longing, the logos of suffering we seem to wear on our hearts. Are we thinking about these things on Thanksgiving morning? Do they make it onto your handmade Turkey every year?

In my 33 years of life, I have experienced extreme loneliness. I have felt the deep longing. I have been branded with the logos of suffering. It is as permanent as the ink in my skin that shapes the letters of my son's name on my wrist. The son who died before he could take his first breath. 

I want to look past these things. I want to see all the good and wonderful things that I think make up the beauty of my life. I want to list my family members, my friends, and my church on my little turkey. I want to remember all the goodness that can still exist in a world where such hard things sometimes monopolize the story.

So, I completely understand why we focus on the easily good things. I know why we push aside the broken things for the happy things. 

We want to remind our broken hearts that the goodness of God can still be seen in the land of the living. Which is so incredibly true. It's here, it's all around us. And I think we should embrace it, let it seep into our weary souls and renew our spirits. God's goodness matters, His faithfulness restores. 

But His goodness does not only live in the happy moments. He faithfulness is not relinquished in the dark times. The heaviness of suffering does not diminish the glory of God and who is He is to us every day.

We must take a stand for our weary souls and embrace the brokenness that has been ordained in our lives. The hard things, the broken things, the sufferings? They are good too. They may have been designed and destined for our harm, but we know that God promises to work all things together for the good of those who love Him, according to His purposes. After all, don't we know that our God is someone who knows how to expertly transform suffering into redemption? Have we not seen it again and again in the Bible, in others' lives, or in our own experiences? 

So, today I am ready to take my stand, in this sacred season of thankfulness. Ready to sacrifice my own expectations of suffering at the foot of the very cross where Jesus declared victory over all suffering and death.

Today I am thankful for John's death. I am thankful for the suffering that I have experienced in its wake. I am thankful for who God is shaping me into. I am thankful for how He has redeemed every moment of brokenness into moments of glory.

It is a true sacrifice of thanksgiving. When we change our perception. When we choose to believe that something that may have been intended for devastation has been made good. We must relinquish our bitterness or anger. Allow the righteousness of justice and fairness to fall by the wayside. For our God is so much bigger than these things, they are not our priority in light of the gospel. In fact, fairness and justice are the very antithesis of the gospel. So doesn't it make perfect sense that the glory of God is so powerful in the moments when we choose to be thankful for the very things that break us? 

We are so often poor imitators of Christ. So often just broken vessels attempting to display God's glory. 

But, if the gospel teaches us anything, let it be that the broken things matter. The broken things rise up and are called blessed. 

And I am thankful for the broken things, the hard things, the sufferings. 

Because these things are holy too.