An Autumn garden bouquet.
My thoughts today did not arise from the fact that it was Thanksgiving in the USA yesterday. Rather, they come as a result of hearing of so much disease in my circle of friends and acquaintances lately. The expression "bad things happening to good people" comes to mind.
But why does the Bible tell us explicitly to be thankful in all things? For me, the main reason is that I do not know the mind of God, nor do I see the big picture like He does. This becomes a trust issue and if I trust him, then what is happening is not really bad, but something that will turn out for the good. That is a difficult idea to wrap our minds around when we are in the thick of radiation or chemotherapy.
On a more practical level, there is something that most of us have experienced. When something bad has happened, it makes us concentrate on the good things we took for granted, before the bad thing happened. Years ago when I came out of the hopsital after 4 days of not knowing if I would live or die, I suddenly appreciated the smell of the air, the shades of green in the trees, and the twitter of sparrows.
On a very simple level, how much do we appreciate the way we used to be able to breathe freely before we had the bad cold and all that congestion? So calamity forces us to draw on the good, the relationships, the faith, and the hope that we will love and appreciate life so much more when all this dust has settled. But as with most trauma, in the thick of which we only have questions, the gratitude will probably be the strongest in retrospect.
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