It was two days before Thanksgiving when my life fell apart. The day started like any other, with the mad dash of getting kids ready for school and adults ready for work. In the middle of the chaos, just as I was about to head to the grocery store to buy everything we needed for Thanksgiving dinner, the phone rang. Within seconds, the doctor on the other end of the line told me the news I never thought I’d hear:
Michele, you have cancer.
Thanksgiving has long been my favorite holiday, ever since I was a young girl helping my mother roast turkeys and bake homemade pies for our family and friends. I love the preparation, the gathering of loved ones, and the absence of commercialism (did I mention the pies?). While Christmas seems to be the pinnacle of most people’s calendar year, Thanksgiving has always been the highlight of mine.
Until cancer decided to show up and put a serious damper on things. As it turns out, pie can’t cure everything.
It’s been thirteen years since that Thanksgiving. By some small miracle, it is still my favorite holiday, even though cancer came back a second and third time in subsequent years, again during the Thanksgiving holiday. Maybe that’s precisely why it is still my favorite holiday. As a result of my suffering, I’ve learned a few things about the practice of Thanksgiving, including both what it is and what it isn’t.
When it comes to an attitude of thankfulness, the Bible verse often quoted around the holiday is 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (NIV): “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” Thanksgiving is certainly a good way to approach life, regardless of circumstances. However, too often this passage is misunderstood and misapplied. We think we must give thanks for all circumstances. How exactly are we supposed to give thanks for the death of a loved one? Or for a terminal diagnosis? How do we rejoice in an abuse of power or the trafficking of children? To be thankful for these circumstances feels not only impossible but callous and inhumane.
I have good news for you: We’re not commanded to give thanks for all circumstances but in all circumstances. And there’s a huge difference between the two. So what can we be thankful for in the middle of circumstances that are breaking our hearts? Here are a few reasons I discovered for Thanksgiving, even while spending the holiday in a hospital ICU bed:
- No circumstance, no matter how horrific, will ever separate me from God’s love for me. (Romans 8:35-39)
- Even though I may feel alone, God will never leave me nor forsake me. (Deut. 31:6, Hebrews 13:5b, Matthew 28:20)
- God sees my suffering and He carries it with me. (Genesis 16:13, Matthew 11:28-30, Mark 6:34)
- Even as He weeps with me, He will ensure my suffering is not wasted. (Romans 8:28)
- And one day He will make sure I never weep again. Only joy! (Revelation 21:4)
Thanksgiving in seasons of abundance comes cheap. It’s still important, still a worthy expression of gratitude for what we’ve been given. But Thanksgiving when we have little to celebrate comes at a cost. But the payout is trust and peace.
“The Lord will surely comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins; he will make her deserts like Eden,
her wastelands like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing.”
Isaiah 51:3 (NIV)
The ruins are real and mustn’t be ignored. We are not called to dance on graves as if the life we mourn wasn’t actually lost. Instead, we see the God who meets us at our graves and looks with compassion on all our ruins. When we see the love in His eyes and remember His promise to bring gardens from graves, we find a different kind of Thanksgiving, one not tied to our circumstances but wrapped up in a Savior for whom we can sing even while we weep.
Written by Michele Cushatt, originally published on (in)courage on November 23, 2022.
Thank you Michele. My husband and I both have “celebrated” holidays during breast cancer and Leukemia treatments…. And yet the “thankfulness” took on a whole new meaning. I am currently reading more about your cancer story and life with Jesus. You inspire us!!
I needed this today! Thank you!
A young lady had decided to not pay her cell phone bill because she had a landline. She “knew” her car & just where the empty line was on the dial. Only thing was, headed to a friend’s she ran out of gas in front of our house & had no way to let her friend know what had happened. Yet in God’s protection she was able to walk to her mom’s not too far away & use the phone. She was not on the side of a busy road or interstate & no one hit her car although stopped on a curved downslope the neighbors love to speed around blindly. With a broken capped gas canister, a sacrificed kitchen funnel & a sputter then a take her car was headed to the gas station. Her list of things to be grateful for growing rather than the woe is me of all she didn’t accomplish stuck in front of our house. Could’ve happened any day but she noted the timing of Thanksgiving & it became a verb not a Holiday for her. May we too experience Thanksgiving as a verb & a holiday not just in November. Blessings! (((0)))
Thank you once again for reminding me that no matter the circumstances, God is there for me and will get me through whatever it is I need to face. I am blessed but need these reminders.
You know what we should give thanks no matter what we go through. Especially if we woke up to enjoy another day in this world as it was God who woke us up to enjoy another day in his beautiful world. We are alive to enjoy it. As that lovely Christian song says. It goes like this “Give thanks with a greatfull heart because he given Jesus Christ his son. Now let the week say I am strong” how true those words are. I might not have them in the right order to do with that lovely song. But the words are so true. We have so much to thank God for. Each day our heart still beats. Even if we are not well. We are alive and that something to thank God for. So we can’t ever say we don’t have any thing to not thank God for. We have the best thing of all to thank God for he sent Jesus his song to die for us so our Sins could be forgiven. I say lots more. Love today’s reading. Love you all incourage. Love Dawn Ferguson-Little xx
“When we see the love in His eyes and remember His promise to bring gardens from graves, we find a different kind of Thanksgiving, one not tied to our circumstances but wrapped up in a Savior for whom we can sing even while we weep.”
I am sooo grateful \0/
Happy Thanksgiving
Michele,
I have had my share of “unhappy” Thanksgivings. One year both my in laws were in the hospital. MIL in ICU due to UTI & almost septic. Then she had to have a heart cath that Saturday. Their preacher & his wife spent their holiday with them separately at the hospital. A year or two later my FIL died the Monday before Thanksgiving. The next year that preacher died Thanksgiving week. My hubby’s ex-MIL’s mom died Thanksgiving day. Yet in all that God was with them & us. He held us close. I attempt to make every day Thanksgiving. Telling Jesus what I’m thankful for.
Blessings 🙂