gratitude is hard.

"But grace can be the experience of a second wind; when even though what you want is clarity and resolution, what you get is stamina and poignancy and the strength to hang on."
-Anne Lamott, Help Thanks Wow

"I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up, and did not let my foes rejoice over me.
O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me.
Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones, and give thanks to his holy name.
Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.
You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, so that my soul may praise you and not be silent.
O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever."
-Excerpts of Psalm 30, NRSV

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It started when I gave up chocolate for Lent.

It was my sophomore year of college, and 19-year-old me didn't think that Jesus cared too much about my abstention from Snickers or cupcakes. But I liked the idea of doing something that marked the season of lament and silence. Of looking through the world, and my life, through a different lens. I wanted to do something that showed God's love, especially to those about whom I cared so deeply - friends, family, mentors, past connections. So, after a purchase of some cute notecards on sale from Target, I decided to add something to my Lenten practice: letters.

Letters of thanks.

For 40 days, I removed myself from the typical millennial method of communicating and physically scripted letters of gratitude to the people and world around me. Sometimes I’d write as soon as I woke up in the morning, excited to remind my grandmother just how much her constant reminders of love lifted me up. Sometimes I’d write before I went to sleep, the last thoughts of my day a written prayer to my 10th grade English teacher, who inspired and mentored me to read books that challenged my perspectives.

The first year was easy. My expressions of gratitude were nice and neat. I wrote to friends who loved me, teachers who supported me, family who believed in me. The next few years were a bit harder. Have you ever written a thank you letter to the sun? How do you tell the the Earth beneath your feet, “Thank you for being there"? Can I ever fully express my love and appreciation and utter amazement for the woman who raised me on her own, my mother?

But then, this year. I felt the lament and pain in the world in a much deeper way than I had before. I wondered and often doubted how I would express gratitude every single day. There seemed to be more things that I grappled with and debated being thankful for than what I actually was grateful for. So, I called on that.

I wrote to my absent father. I wrote to the Church that caused (and sometimes still causes) me confusion. I wrote to myself. Not letters of anger or blame or revenge. Letters of gratitude.

Gratitude isn’t always easy. It isn't always nice and neat. Sometimes, the only way to encounter gratitude is to cry out, "Help!" and accept God’s healing—in whatever way that shows up—and to try to be thankful for what appears. 

Gratitude is hard. It is messy. But it is there.

These letters forced me to call upon grace. The last thing I wanted to do was write, “Thank you, Dad, for giving me life. Thank you, Church, for opening a space of questioning and discovery. Thank you, me, for being.” But those were the prayers of gratitude I needed to speak and share. They were my reality; they were my life. Like it or not, I was able to find something in the muck that caused me to say, "Thanks." It might have been buried deep down under great lament, and it might have required a little imagination, but it was there.

I had found my second wind. 

God doesn’t always answer our desires to express gratitude in the way we want. Sometimes God uses our cries for help as opportunities for unexpected gratitude. To channel the stamina and poignancy and the strength to hang on. The weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes in the morning. God turns our mourning into dancing. Maybe not in the way we expect, but in a way that only God can.

O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.