Counting Our Blessings When Life Is Hard

A note about this devotional

In 2017, our family was suddenly and unexpectedly thrust into many waiting rooms at doctor’s offices and hospitals. This meditation on gratitude is excerpted from the devotional I wrote about that season. To learn more about The Waiting Room: 60 Meditations for Finding Peace and Hope in a Health Crisis, subscribe to Living Story or check back at www.elizabethturnage.com for announcements in the near future.

For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. 2 Corinthians 4:15, ESV

At times during our season in the waiting room, I was far better at counting losses than I was at counting blessings. When things went so far wrong and our son had had three surgeries in four weeks time, I did not feel very grateful. But I knew the apostle Paul’s insistence that God’s grace grows a heart of gratitude.

Our sin nature bends our heart away from gratitude in the best of times; during hard seasons, gratitude may take more effort than ever. Author Ann Voskamp, in her pivotal work on gratitude, One Thousand Gifts, emphasizes the effort involved when she asks, “How do I see grace, give thanks, find joy in this sin-stinking place?” Indeed, when my 83-year-old father was wearing a diaper and moaning in pain, I had to work to see grace, to give thanks.

Gratitude does not deny the painful reality of living in a fallen world; after all, the apostle Paul wrote, “We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9, NLT). And yet, Paul thanked God in the midst of his suffering because more people were discovering God’s grace; therefore, more people were thanking God for his gift of forgiveness, and more people were glorifying God (2 Corinthians 4:15).

Gratitude does not deny the painful reality of living in a fallen world. #gratitude #countyourblessings #countyourlosses Share on X

With Paul’s logic in mind, I began to “recount” (re-count) all of the “wonderful deeds of the Lord” (Psalm 9:1b, ESV). I brought to mind his blessings, naming them one by one, as the old song suggests:

Sweet friends paid us a visit today just after the doctor gave us a hard report. Thank you.
The doctor gave us a good report today. Thank you.
A smiling stranger on the elevator held the door for me. Thank you.
A lovely handwritten card arrived in the mail. Thank you.
Our son knows Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. Thank you!

As I listed the many kindnesses of God in the midst of this tumultuous season, guess what happened? My heart settled. It seems the apostle Paul, who had been in prison when he wrote the words, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I say, rejoice,” (Philippians 4:4), knew exactly what he was talking about. He knew that we are made to thank and glorify God; that is the essence of life for a follower of Christ. As we remember the redemption God has worked in our lives, we trust God to work wonders again.

A Prayer about Counting Our Blessings

Lord, thank you for your grace, thank you for your Holy Spirit who jogs our memory to “forget not all your benefits.” Thank you most of all your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.