Thankfulness When Life Stinks – Part 1
A friend of mine is putting together a cool project to kick off 2021, around having people share their word for the year. You know how many people pick a word to focus on each year? That word. When I heard about the project, I hadn’t picked my word for 2021 yet. But within a couple minutes of thinking about it, I had chosen my word…thankful.
Thankfulness is so powerful, yet it takes intention and discipline, at least for me. In a backwards way, not an intentional one, it’s sort of been my word for three quarters of 2020.
Before we get to that, let me share with you about my first quarter of 2020…Just about one year ago this time (it was the first week of November) we finally had what we hoped were some answers to my health challenges that no doctor had been able to figure out – mold, in our house and our church (and homeschool co-op) – the two places I spent nearly all of my time.
Through a series of events, within the week, we made the heart-rending decision that we needed to move. Yes, we would remediate, but we didn’t think I could live there and heal. This was a HUGE decision. Monumental. This was the family homestead. This was the house my FIL had designed and had built and where my husband had grown up. This was the house we LOVED and had planned to live in the rest of our lives. This was the house on the most beautiful, perfectly laid out two acres we’d ever seen with the in-laws next door on another 2.5 acres, giving our boys 4.5 acres to roam and play and built forts and have daily chats with grandma and grandpa. We had a lovely swimming and fishing pond visible through double French doors at the front of the house, pine woods, flowering tree lined drive, fruit trees and bushes, and space to do the homesteading we enjoyed (before I got too sick to do the work). This was our dream home. This was our refuge.
Can you hear the grief? And that was only the beginning. In the process of getting out of mold, we could only keep things that were solid, non-porous and every surface could be thoroughly cleaned and wiped down with a special solution that kills mold and breaks down mold mycotoxins. We can save the pots and pans, woohoo! (You can hear the sarcasm, right?) That means every item was hand sorted. So the pictures, the 1800 books, my kids’ prized artwork drawing pieces hanging on the wall, the quilt from grandma, my wedding dress, special mementos, gifts of artwork my husband drew for me for birthdays and Valentine’s Day, all our upholstered furniture, heirloom dressers, family pictures on the wall, all my kids’ stuffed animals and nearly all their toys, almost everything had to go. Over two thousand square feet of house plus a garage and workshop and 20 years of memories and the life we’d built piece by piece went down to two utility trailers. And…we didn’t have another house to move to.
I grieved. Hard. I yelled at God, literally, evening after evening as I sat in the house by myself (we had moved in with my in-laws next door after Thanksgiving, so the rest of the family was there) sorting and throwing out and cleaning. I cried and cried and cried. I asked why, not in a “what can I learn from this” way, but in a, “this is so messed up and makes no sense and how could you” way. I knew God doesn’t necessarily protect us from incredibly hard things and that sometimes He even brings those things to us deliberately to direct us where and into who He desires us to be. I didn’t expect Him to make life easy for me, but at the same time, I sure didn’t like what He had chosen for us at this juncture.
Can you relate? Have you ever been there? Have you ever struggled with what life has brought you? Have you ever hurt so badly you raged at God about it? Or maybe you turned away and rejected Him? Or stopped short of rejecting Him, but turned away and gave Him the silent treatment?
If you are wondering where to go from here or what to do with all that pain, anger, hurt, confusion, grief, sadness, and more Hope Anew has a 5-week Hope & Healing Workshop where walk with you through that process. Contact us and sign up on the waiting list for the next live online workshop.
So how do I get to thankfulness from here??? You’ll find out in part two next Saturday.
Written by Sarah McGuire
