Practicing Gratitude
I have had an ambivalent relationship with practice. The word alone conjures up many feelings. First, my eleven years of piano lessons were wrought with more pain than pleasure. Many hours my body yearned to have been running, bicycling, or playing sports, but I was living in an era when piano lessons were more common than soccer leagues. I had four different piano teachers and was thankful that my last teacher said that she would not teach seniors in high school! It was my get-out-of-jail card, and I never looked back.
The practice of gratitude is a whole different beast. It comes in spurts when the beauty of nature brings tears and makes me want to kneel in awe. Or when I’ve barely made it across the city street crosswalk after the light changed and the driver notices me and slows down. Not all intersections in the world would have been this genteel. I practice gratitude when I see someone with a cast or a cane, remembering the crutches I needed during the winter of sixth grade. It hurt so much to not get to play basketball that season. My physical education instructor noticed how good I was. I loved that he saw me. I think I was good.
Recently, I was at a spa with my daughters for Mother’s Day weekend and witnessed a darling pregnant woman walking with her husband. They were odd and stood out (in my mind, like a circus spectacle). His hand was on her shoulder, and his face pressed against his wife’s face wherever they went. I had never seen a couple walking in tandem as they talked and glided across the hotel lobby as one! The third time I saw them, my daughter said, “Mom, he’s blind!” I gasped! The absolute trust and glory made tears spring out! They were stunning. I’m immensely grateful that Dan and I have been able to grow old with keen eyesight.
When we are in the presence of wonder, the practice of gratitude is primarily an act of observation.
If we are not careful, we miss so much wonder around us because our vision is bound to tasks and busyness. To be captured by wonder is mere submission to the glory around us. It requires practice but, far more, openness to receive the beauty of what is right before our eyes…all the time.
It is not the same when we are called to enter heartache. How does anyone practice gratitude in the face of danger? My dearest friend from childhood texted me that she has a brain tumor while I was waiting for the ferry with my daughter. Shit! I texted back immediately, “Are you too tired to talk?” No, she texted, and I called with a heart so heavy, scared, and panicked. What was I to say to her while standing in this public ferry line? I wanted to slump to the floor and wail.
It has been two weeks now, and we have talked a few times and texted more than normal. My practice of gratitude will be for the many physicians and medical personal that will help and care for Julie. It will be for her husband, family, and friends who come alongside to encourage and help in any way possible.
We’ve known each other since we were in utero in our mother’s wombs, like John and Jesus. Life has always been shared even when we are not together. Her presence is as real as a sunrise. As real as watching the eagles soar together over the Puget Sound. I love her so much. Life was with Julie included camps, Sunday School, and choir; Camp Wyandotte, Cedar Point, and Lake Erie; penny arcades, slumber parties, and horseback riding. All my friends know about Julie.
I want her to live and be free of this disease, desperately. But is my gratitude based on the outcome of her surgery? On the prolongation of her life? I will be practicing gratitude irrespective of the outcome.
Practicing gratitude is just that—” practicing,” which is arduous and intentional, particularly when tragedy strikes. Then it feels like blasphemy to praise, in any form, on this side of heaven. No matter the outcome, my friend Julie will reside in me with sorrow and joy. She has formed me in her wild and dangerous antics and laughter. Why will gratitude grow? It is the profound phrase—“Christ in you the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). Everyone who has formed Christ in us, whatever their state, is the ground of our gratitude.
Originally published in Red Tent Living on July 2, 2024.