This is a stream-of-consciousness message from me to me today. Nevertheless perhaps someone else out there is not feeling very thankful either right now and might appreciate it too.
I’m basically ok – so please don’t worry about me – but, I was a bit caught out yesterday by remembering the implications of this week for those of us living in America. Including me. Yesterday morning I suddenly realized “Oh no, this is the week when everyone is going to be talking about what they are thankful for, blah blah blah”. I felt a pressure I didn’t like although, really, it doesn’t matter what other people are saying, does it? It’s not like it’s in the US Constitution that every citizen has to be thankful this week.
After that I watched a video on facebook about “how to be thankful for what didn’t happen”. When I saw the title it made me smile because I thought “Oh, well, if that’s all it is, yeah I can find someone worse off than me and be glad I’m not them!” (It does suck to be them, though)
In spite of my initial reaction it was a serious Christian message saying that there are days about which our first thoughts might be “nothing happened today”. But actually, on those days, God was protecting us all the time from all sorts of calamities. If we take a moment to consider all the things that didn’t happen we will quickly see that on days when “nothing happened”, nothing is something to be very thankful for! In other words, yes, something amazing did happen, God’s Angels were all around us protecting us from many many things.
Ok so I get that. However, being really honest, maybe I don’t care about that because I don’t feel like being thankful right now. Maybe the idea of being thankful only serves to remind me that I am actually still quite upset about what did happen to me in the last few weeks.
Maybe I might be able to get my head around being thankfu at some pointl, but, first, I need to know the other side of it. As a Christian I would want to know that God cared a lot about the difficult things that have affected me in recent weeks. They did happen and for whatever reason God was evidently unable to stop them happening. I can’t get to thinking about what didn’t happen until I’ve finished thinking about what did. I can’t get my head around the good stuff until I’ve processed the bad stuff and felt validated that yeah it really was bad and not my fault and that God – or maybe at least someone out there – cares.”
Or maybe it was partly my fault, but it wasn’t entirely my fault.
If God was a human being I guess I’d be saying “Ok, but I can’t say ‘thank you’ until you’ve said ‘sorry’ or at least ‘I hear you’. That’s kinda how it works, y’know?
I also kinda feel this is rather a first world problem. I mean, “be thankful for what didn’t happen” seems like it’s not a helpful message to people who are literally starving or being tortured. Just saying.
Also, yeah, “get off social media then” would be one way of lessening the pressure on me to do what others are doing. So, congrats to those of you who are taking care of yourselves by doing that, although it probably means you won’t be reading this!