In less than a week it will be Thanksgiving, and after that we enter the mad rush of stress and radiance that is the holidays. Our facebook pages have been overrun with thankful postings as people contemplate what they hold valuable about their lives. The feast is being planned. The football game is being anticipated. The nerds are so freaked over the Doctor Who 50th!!!!!!!!!! (Yes, I know many of you have no clue what that last sentence is about. I confess to being a nerd. Now moving on.)

Normally about right now I’d be helping plan the menu and gathering ingredients and figuring which day next week will be devoted to baking freezer rolls, and which for pies. However all of that kind of got thrown out the window this week as I’ve dealt with a sick child and a sick me. It was kind of scary the first night, my baby girl woke up all croupy and her breathing was just horrible sounding. Any parent who’s experienced this will tell you that it can be panic inducing, and I did nearly panic, just ask my husband, but I managed to calm myself and not sweat it to much.

Want to know why?

I have a fairly early memory of having croup. I remember not being able to breath. Making my way to my parents room for help. In my memory the scary part ended there. I remember my Daddy holding me in their restroom with the shower steaming everything up, and then when that didn’t work holding me out on the patio in the cold misty air wrapped warm in a blanket. I couldn’t breath well, but I knew I was safe in my daddies arms.

Awhile ago I talked that memory over with my parents. Apparently they were really scared by the whole thing and were starting to really worry when the steam didn’t work and they had to try the outside and the cold. But all I remember is being safe in my Dads arms.

Because I remembered the experience, I knew what to do. I also knew it was going to be ok. I knew that though my daughters breathing sounded frightening that she herself didn’t need to be scared, and I knew how to address the circumstances. All because I had croup as a little girl.

In that moment, I was pretty thankful that I had had croup at an age where I could remember it.

Croup was a bad thing. It was certainly a trial that night for my parents. But the very fact that I had it turned out to be good. The experience, even in my little child mind, stuck and actually taught me something that could help me now as a young mom.

I’d like to posit a little thought for you.

Trial can be a good thing. Can even be something worth being thankful for.

Last week I talked about the man who wrote “It Is Well With My Soul.” He wrote a beautiful hymn all about resting in God’s peace after having almost all that he loved ripped from him. I asked if we could still trust and love God in similar circumstances. This week I’d like to take that idea  a step further. Can we thank God for our difficult circumstances?

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. Romans 8:18

It takes an awful lot of faith to be able in the middle of your trial to say, “God I know You are going to use this in some incredible way for Your Kingdom! Thank You for the honor of allowing me to go through this in Your Name!” Yet I really think it’s an attitude worth considering.

After all, we regularly thank Christ for the Trial He walked through for our sake.

I’m not saying bad things happen because God is causing them. But I do think He allows things to hit us in order to make His glory known. I also think He uses them to make us stronger. To give us a testimony and an ability to speak into people’s lives that we wouldn’t have had otherwise. To refine us so we can become more and more like Christ and live lives with more peace, joy, and authority no matter what happens around us. In fact I firmly believe that He can make anything, anything, into something that will work out for good in the end in some way.

That’s part of the Glory that is Him. It’s part of His mystery.

So why can’t we be thankful? Look through your life at the trials you’ve faced, and see if good may have came out of them. Did it make  you stronger? Wiser? Kinder? Did it create a story you can tell of how God worked in your life? Maybe you are in the middle of that trial. Can you see how it might be refining you? Sometimes you can’t. But you can trust. You can with your whole heart grab on to God’s grace and will and declare, “God I don’t understand what is going on, but I trust you. So I choose peace in the middle of it!” And even that becomes a testimony, the very fact that you can have peace. And even that is something we can thank Him for.

So this Thanksgiving, yes, thank Him for His blessings in your life. Be thankful for your loved ones. But also, try being thankful for your trials!

~Joy Aletheia Stevens

Photo Credit: Thanksgiving Deadliest by Martin Cathrae (CC BY-SA 2.0)   

Photo Credit: Fall Foliage Leaves by Forest Wander (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Photo Credit: Thanksgiving Drive by Kate Mereand-Sinha (CC BY 2.0)