Gratitude: Why Giving Thanks Is the Key to Our Well-Being
When my boys were little and beginning to form sentences, I often prompted them to say “Please” and “Thank you”. It was the right thing to do to teach my three sons some basic manners, but was it authentic? Did it mean anything to them besides their mother forcing them to do something that they really weren’t connecting to? Similarly, I often forced them to say, “I’m sorry,” when they–often very obviously–didn’t mean it.
Yet, cultivating a life of gratitude was important to me as a mother, and I wanted to start by teaching my children the simple act of saying, “Thank you.” As they grew and could understand more, they began asking, “Why?” “Why do I have to say sorry?” “Why do I have to be thankful?” “Why?” Gratitude: Why Giving Thanks is the Key to Our Well-Being by Cornelius Plantinga reminds me to continue to live a life of gratitude and thanks even when my sons are grown and don’t need constant reminders.
The definition of gratitude Plantinga provides in the first chapter of his book caught me off guard a bit. He writes, “Gratitude is a glad sense of being gifted with something by someone and thus being indebted to the giver” (7). I wrestle with the idea of being indebted to anyone besides the Lord. I believe that I am a generous person, which is a benefit of my grateful nature. Still, the idea of being indebted to someone feels like an obligation, and that doesn’t feel generous or grateful. However, it makes sense when Plantinga talks about the benefactor, as I know God is behind all good things. It is not chance or luck. I owe God everything.
I work with young adolescents and often wonder how to get them excited about things or get some passion behind what they are working towards in life. I really resonated with the chapter “What Blocks My Gratitude?” (31). This chapter describes the struggle of helping kids see a relationship with Jesus as relevant and necessary in this world. However, I am often met with apathetic kids. They don’t care much about making heart-to-heart connections. They often struggle to name things for which they are grateful. They have an “it is what it is” kind of attitude. Helping them grow into grateful people is part of the process I engage them in. Using gratitude journals and helping them to see the many things they can be grateful for is a starting point: they woke up this morning, they had a bed to sleep in, they have food in their bellies, they have hair on their head to style to have a good hair day, and so on. Helping them see the benefits of being grateful and how that affects their lives for positive growth is vital in my work.
The benefits of a grateful life have saved my life during some dark times. It wasn’t until I was in the throws of a huge life storm that someone offered me the life preserver of starting a gratitude journal. I was so desperate at the moment that I went straight to the store to find one and started it that day. I actually found myself looking forward to the end of the day because I would write down my gratitude just before bed. This gratitude journal allowed me to sleep better because the exercise of writing significantly decreased my anxiety–I could feel joy beginning to rise in the midst of a lot of deep pain. Much like the benefits Plantinga shares in chapter 4, “What Happens to Me If I Am Grateful”, I am living proof of the results of daily taking note of gratitude–contentment, joy, heart health, and much more.
I think the most important result of exercising gratitude is seeing God so much greater than before and becoming more like Him. God’s character became clearer, and I found it easier to be like Him in the way He loves. I could see and experience “new life.” As relationships and what I held tight to were dying around me, God was growing something new in me that was birthed from taking time to be thankful.
Plantinga writes, “…is knowing ‘there is a blessing in this somewhere’ unrealistic–just a sunny-side-up fiction from a novel? I don’t think so” (98). This idea was hard for me to read at first. Growing up in a Christian home and working hard to live a “good” Christian life, I was taught that everything was just sunny-side-up. But when my life as I knew it began to disintegrate–when the life I had fell apart–it was really hard to choose between trying to see the good in my life falling apart and holding space for the pain and grief of my life falling apart. How could I be thankful for the pain I was experiencing? How could I continue to help my three sons live a life of gratitude when it felt like we were living in darkness?
But God wasn’t asking me to choose between a “sunny-side-up” life or a living-in-darkness life. God was asking me to deepen my faith in Him and know He knows the pain of betrayal, broken trust, and people walking away. I needed all of Plantinga’s chapter, “It Could Be Worse”. I needed to be reminded how my lament and vulnerability to God led to a deeper faith in Him, not the things of this world or myself. I held firmly to the word of the Psalms, especially the ones that allowed me to ask the Lord, “Where are You? What are You doing?”. Coming out of this hard space, I was grateful that God walked with me through the storm and didn’t make me see pain as “a gift”.
Overall, I appreciated Plantinga’s book and found it easy to read. He offers practical ways to live a life of gratitude. Practicing gratitude gave me hope for the future, helped me rest in God’s presence, and allowed me to live into the fullness of who God has created me to be; for this, I am grateful.
