Thankful in the midst of trials

I’ve been wanting to sit down all week and write a Thanksgiving post. All the kids and I have strep throat, so today didn’t turn out exactly as planned. It’s almost midnight now, and the children are peacefully sleeping. Even though I’m feeling sick, I couldn’t let this day slip away without taking a few minutes to write.

A friend told me recently that we’ll never forget 2008. That’s for sure! We’ve had to face several trials this year, including our son’s hospitalization in June, a stressful time in my husband’s career, several deaths in my husband’s family, and the prolonged sicknesses of two close members of my extended family. Other challenges have been minor in comparison, but still registered as a blip on our radar this year.

Yet this has been a wonderful year spiritually for our family. We are all growing, in the Lord and in love for one another. Our trials have made the joys found in Christ all the sweeter. We have had to cast ourselves upon Him and we have found that He is, indeed, a rock and a fortress. Our struggles have served as a magnifying glass, clarifying how very much we have to be thankful for.

I am thankful that our faith is being proved genuine. When our 8 year old son was hospitalized this year, it was an encouragement to him–and to us–that he was still able to trust and praise God, even in the midst of the greatest trial of his young life.

“In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
1 Peter 1: 6-7

We have many things to be thankful for. But this year, we have found again and again that even when some of those things are stripped away, the one thing that matters most still remains. We have the Lord.

Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift! 2 Corinthians 9:15