EP 104: Giving Thanks through Hardship

I took a longer break from podcasting than planned, thanks to all that must be done for my daughter’s upcoming wedding. But I didn’t want to let Thanksgiving pass without encouraging you to count your blessings and to discuss the importance of giving thanks, even through hardship.

Giving Thanks through Hardships

Full Transcript of Episode 104

Hello, friend. Welcome to — what is this? — Episode 104 of Loving Life at Home? I took a longer break from podcasting than I intended as we have been busily planning a wedding that will take place two days after Thanksgiving. I’ll share more about that next week, hopefully, Lord willing. But for today, I want to talk about Thanksgiving. and particularly about giving thanks through hardships, even when we’re dealing with difficult circumstances.

It looks like all 12 of our children and their spouses will be here to celebrate Thanksgiving as a family on Thursday and hopefully to take some nice family portraits that I can use in my Christmas card this year. Traditionally, when we gather together as a family for our big holiday meal, we take a few minutes so everyone can name something that they’re especially grateful for or say what we consider God’s biggest blessing over the previous 12 months.

And I distinctly remember what my husband said last year when it was his turn. He said,

Well, let me tell you, our circumstances began to change the instant those words had crossed his lips. It’s almost as if God were telling us, “I’m glad you enjoyed the break, but a life of ease and comfort is not what brings about the most growth for you or glory to me. So now it’s time for all of us to get back to work.”

Less than a week later, we got a call from a daughter-in-law who was at the emergency room with our little two-year-old grandson. His mom had put him down for a nap while they were visiting his other grandmother’s house, and he evidently snuck out of bed, ingested something toxic that he found in her bathroom, and was now struggling to even breathe. So the ER doctors arrived. intubated him and care flighted him to Dallas.

That was scary.

At first, they thought that he had swallowed some kind of bathroom cleaner because he’d strewn those bottles all over the floor. But the blood test revealed that he’d gotten into grandma’s medication, which was less caustic, but still concerning as there are a lot of pills and supplements adults take that look and sometimes even taste like candy, but can be deadly for babies.

So that turn of events definitely drove us all to our knees.

Mercifully, My little grandson fully recovered and was discharged a few days later with no lingering effects except that it caused him and his parents to miss our family’s annual week-long trip to San Antonio last year.

Next came lots of car troubles. A fender bender and one burned up engine while we were in San Antonio. My daughter had gotten her oil changed right before we left and the tech that did it did not replace the drain plug properly. And so all the oil drained out on the way and left her stranded outside of San Antonio.

And then our oldest son was in a highway collision back at home, which resulted in two totaled vehicles and might have easily caused several fatalities, had angles and velocities and reaction times not played out precisely the way they did.

Then boom, boom, boom, just a week after that came a breast cancer diagnosis for me — mind you, all of this was in the course of a month. I detailed that part of the story in Episode 70 last year, Unwrapping Cancer for Christmas, which I’ll link in today’s show notes.

I’m planning to give a detailed update on how things are going in the next few weeks, so I won’t say any more about that right now, except to note that God has been so very merciful to me in that respect and has brought about so many, many good things in my life as a result of that cancer diagnosis. So I’m grateful to him for all of it, including the original lump that alerted me to the fact that there was even a problem.

The point is, it’s easy to be thankful when everything is good, when life is easy and the sun is shining and you have a care in the world. But such happy circumstances don’t last forever — at least not on this side of heaven. And God calls us to be grateful even when things don’t go as we hoped, even when our hearts are heavy or weighed down with grief, even when we’re plagued by trials and tribulations.

When we examine the history behind the U.S.’ ‘s National Day of Thanksgiving, we see a country that chose to give thanks even in the midst of hardship. The pilgrims had lost over half their number in that first hard winter. At one point, their food supplies were so diminished they had to subsist on a daily ration of only five kernels of corn. Yet, they remained eternally grateful to God for His watch care over them and for the opportunity to pursue a life of religious freedom in the New World.

When Abraham Lincoln first issued a proclamation of thanksgiving and praise in the fall of 1863, the country was embroiled in a bloody civil war. Yet even in the midst of that severe conflict, they set aside time to count their many blessings and to send up prayers of gratitude and praise to God as a source of those blessings.

These men and women of faith set a good example for us to follow. In the aftermath of hurricanes and wildfires and mass shootings and all the other tragedies that have fallen upon our nation in recent years, we must be faithful to pray for the eyes to see what God is doing in our lives, for faith to believe that He can bring beauty from ashes, and for hearts that will sing of His goodness and faithfulness even in, or perhaps especially in, times of hardship.

7 Reasons to Give Thanks in Hardship

I can think of seven reasons that we should be grateful for the hardships that we encounter in life.

1. Hardships draw us closer to God.

First, our hardships serve to draw us closer to God. I don’t know who said it, but I think it’s true: “There are no atheists in foxholes.”

I have a dear friend who is a very outspoken atheist, not just agnostic. She doesn’t just say, “I don’t know.” She is like convinced there is no God. Yet, when she has experienced some really heavy trials in her life, she’s asked me, “Jennifer, will you please pray for me?”

Then, of course, some of us, even those of us who do believe and have committed our hearts and lives to Christ, can get so distracted by things that are going on in life that we are effectively living as if we were atheists. kind of forget God.

I think Agur was the one who wrote…let me see if I can find that verse. His prayer was,

"Keep deception and lies far from me, God. Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is my portion. Otherwise, I may have too much and deny You, saying, ‘Who is the LORD?’ Or I may become poor and steal, profaning the name of my God." (Prov. 30:8-9)

Sometimes when things are going real well, we forget to give praise and thanks to God for that. And we live as if there were no God. We may go through our days never taking the time to pause and pray or read our Bible or even give thought to what God would have us do with the time that He’s provided for us.

But then we we encounter some kind of hardship, some difficult trial, and it sends us back to our knees. We definitely draw closer to God, and He draws closer to us during times of trial and tribulation, so we can be thankful for that.

2. Hardships increase our gratitude for the blessings of God.

The second thing that hardships do is it increases our gratitude for the blessings of God. Sometimes you don’t really appreciate what you have until it is threatened.

I know that that was the case. I’ve shared this before, but for sixth children. I nursed my babies and had no trouble breastfeeding whatsoever. My supply was ample. The babies latched on properly. Everything just went swimmingly.

Yet number seven came along and she didn’t latch well and I didn’t produce the milk that I had in the past. And it was a struggle from the get go to nurse her. And it really wasn’t until I experienced that with Rebekah that I came to fully appreciate what a mercy and grace it was of God to give me such an easy time with the first six children.

And so I think that those times of hardship are good at highlighting the fact that it’s not all hard and that God has given us so many countless blessings. We should be counting our blessings and naming them one by one!

But sometimes we just take them for granted or feel entitled until we are faced with something that is really, really difficult. And it reminds us, “Oh, wow, God has been so good all along.”

My husband, when he was in high school, read a book called The Prophet by Khalil Gibran, I think is the name of the author. And so when we met, he was telling me about that and wanted me to read it too, which I did.

I don’t know that it made as big an impact on me as it had on him. But I do remember one quote from from it, which is, “Sorrow is the cup that holds our joy.”

And I think that there’s some wisdom in that, that when you have experienced sorrow, it just helps you appreciate the joy so much. And the deeper the sorrow that you’ve had, the more joy and more gratitude you feel for the blessings in your life. So that’s the second thing.

3. Hardships develop in us the character of God.

The third thing that hardship does is it develops in us the character of God. James 1:2-3 tells us,

"Count it all joy when you encounter various trials or difficulties of various kinds, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience [or some translations say, "...produces endurance." ] And let endurance have its perfect results, so you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."(James 1:2-3)

So God uses those trials to develop in us the fruits of the Spirit and to help us be more accurate reflections of His character to the watching world.

4. Hardships make us more aware of our dependence on God.

Then fourth, hardships make us aware of our dependence, our utter dependence on God. I don’t say that they make us more dependent on God, because actually we are completely dependent on God for every breath, for every heartbeat.

But sometimes we, again, take those things for granted and we don’t recognize how indebted we are to God for every mercy and grace He gives us. And when we encounter trials and difficulties in life, it just helps us to be more aware.

Paul talks about all the many things that he’s endured and how he has learned to be content in all circumstances, and he follows up some of those descriptions with i can do all things through christ who strengthens me. And one of the things that his many hardships had taught him was to depend on the strength of Christ and the grace that he offers to help us through.

He [Jesus] tells us,

"Come unto Me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your soul, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
(Matthew 11:28)

And he is able to make whatever yoke and burden that we have easier and lighter because he gives us the strength to endure it.

5. Hardships demonstrate to the world the sufficiency of God.

So those hardships serve to draw us closer to God, increase our gratitude for the blessings of God, developing us the character of God, make us aware of our dependence of God. They also illustrate for the world the sufficiency of God.

Do you remember when Satan was appearing before the throne of God and they were discussing Job and Satan says, Well, of course, Job serves You. You’ve done nothing but good for Job. You’ve blessed him in every way. And he has good health and is wealthy and all these things. (see Job 1:9-10)

I think the world sometimes looks at Christians that same way: “Well, of course, you believe in God. And of course, you’re a Christian… because you have things so easy. If you had things harder, then you would curse God and die or you would no longer believe in Christ or whatever it is they seem to think.”

And that was Satan’s argument. And I think that the fact that we do, you know, ” Into every life, a little rain must fall,” and God does carry us through those hard times. But when the watching world sees you continue to maintain your integrity and your faith in God through difficulties, it’s a testimony to them that Christ is sufficient.

You know, Paul said, “with clothing and food, let us be content.” And contrary to what health and wealth preachers want to have us believe, we aren’t promised an easy life on this side of heaven.

Jesus himself said, “These things I’ve spoken unto you that in me you might have peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer for I have overcome the world.” I think that’s John 16, 33.

And I think that the world watches us. And when they see that we can continue to praise God and serve Him and consider that He is good and believe that with all our heart, despite everything, whatever troubles that we encounter, that it is a testimony to the sufficiency of Christ.

6. Hardships are used to serve the purposes of God.

And then also our hardships are used to serve the purposes of God. We know that God can work all things together for the good. He tells us in Romans 8, 28, that he does exactly that for those who are called according to his purpose.

And I think that’s a good exercise for us when we are faced with difficulties of any kind is to examine how has God taught and blessed and faithfully carried me through this hardship and look for that silver lining. I have always been able to find one. And I think it’s there if you look hard enough.

Sometimes the purposes of God can vary as far as why we encounter hardship:

CORRECTION: Perhaps it’s for discipline. Sometimes we bring hardship on ourselves when we disobey God’s clear command.

Think of Jonah and the great fish. He was swallowed by that fish because he was fleeing from God. He was being disobedient. And sometimes our hardships come upon us as a result of our disobedience.

Or think about Elisha’s servant, Gehazi. When Elisha, through the power of God, had cured Naaman of leprosy and Naaman wanted to reward Elisha, Elisha refused that reward. Yet after Naaman left, his servant Gehazi ran after him and said, Oh, oh, my master’s changed his mind. He needs all these things. And Naaman gave it to him.

When Gehazi got back, Elisha asked where he had been. And again, he lied about it. And he ended up getting the leprosy that Naaman had. He ended up suffering with that for the rest of his life.

And so sometimes our hardships are sent to us as discipline from the Lord. That’s certainly not the case for every hardship we encounter. But Proverbs 3:11 tells us,

"My son do not reject the discipline of the Lord or loathe His reproof, for whom the LORD loves, He reproves, even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights."

And so even if that is the source of the hardship, God still gives you grace to get through it. But certainly not every hardship is sent as discipline from the Lord. But it does still serve the purposes of God.

PREPARATION: Sometimes it’s endurance training. Think about the Israelites who were forced to continue to make bricks, but without any straw. They had to go and gather their own straw.

After Moses went to Pharaoh and asked Pharaoh to let his people go, Pharaoh said, Oh, it’s because they have too much time on their hands that they’re clamoring to go worship God in the wilderness. And if they have that much time, we’ll stop providing straw and they will have to go out and gather it themselves. But the quota of bricks that they’re required to produce will not be lessened at all.

And so the Israelites grumbled about that, yet God was preparing them physically for a very strenuous journey. They were about to be taken out of the land of Egypt and go through the wilderness.

And they ended up wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, because again, that was a disobedience matter. God was going to send them into the promised land and they balked at it.

But RE:the straw, they weren’t being punished by God for that straw. They were being prepared by God for this arduous journey that they were about to take. And he was using that as endurance training.

CONNECTIONS: Sometimes it’s for divine appointment. Think about Joseph being sent to jail. Well, first of all, being sent into slavery by his brother, sold into slavery, and then sent by Potiphar to jail. And in jail, he met the cupbearer and the baker for the royal court.

Sometimes the hardships we endure are because God has a divine appointment and people that we need to meet in a certain setting. And that was the case with Joseph. The cup bearer eventually gave Joseph’s name to the Pharaoh when Pharaoh had a dream that needed interpreting. So that contact that he had made a couple of years earlier was what brought Joseph to the Pharaoh’s attention in court.

REDIRECTION: And then sometimes it’s just for redirection. Think about Paul on the road to Damascus, encountering the Lord and being blinded. That was a hardship, yet God was using that to redirect his entire life.

Up until that time, he had been persecuting the church and had been standing by as Christians were stoned, like in the case of Stephen. Yet God had a different purpose for his life, and that blindness on the road to Damascus was what helped to redirect Paul there.

And he became as zealous about promoting Jesus as he had been about persecuting the followers of Jesus. And we ended up with such a huge portion of the New Testament written by this man that had originally been persecuting the people that believed.

So sometimes for discipline, sometimes for endurance training or divine appointment or redirection, whatever the case, God is going to use those hardships in your life to serve His purposes, and we can be grateful for that.

7. Hardships ultimately bring glory to God.

And then ultimately, number seven, our hardships bring glory to God. I love that song, “How Firm a Foundation.” Every verse is such an encouragement, but the middle two are especially poignant. They say…

I love that last verse: “The flame will not hurt thee. I only designed thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.” The goldsmiths used to heat up the gold over a flame and as the gold melted, the impurities in the gold would rise to the top and they could skim that dross off the top and would continue to do so until they could look in the little crucible of molten gold, and it would be pure enough to reflect their image.

And that is exactly what God does with us — He is trying to purify us so that we will more accurately reflect His image to a watching world, and that will bring glory to Him.

Now, speaking of flames, we had something very harrowing happen to our eight-year-old grandson. Just last month, in October, while he was using flint and steel to kindle a fire in his backyard, a bottle of alcohol that he had been using exploded in his hand while he was tending that fire, and it caught his whole head on fire.

And his eyes were closed, and he needed help, and he didn’t know where all the flame was because it had actually caught the grass on fire as well. And so he ran, and they said he looked like a little matchstick running for help with his face alight. And what a horrific scene that must have been.

They snatched him and rolled him around on the ground trying to get the flames out and grabbed a wet towel and they threw that on him and picked him up and carried him to the car to drive straight to the ER.

And on the way, James asked if he would still be able to see. And Ben admitted, I don’t know, son, just keep your eyes closed.

And James answered, “Well, I don’t want to be blind….” But through that conversation, James said three things that really impressed me.

First of all, he said, “I trust God.” And second, “I just want his will to be done.” And then the third thing he said was, “I know he has a purpose for this.”

And that was just such a testimony to hear my son relay the statements of faith that James made through the course of that conversation. I just wish that every believer could trust so implicitly in the goodness of God, regardless of our circumstances, to know that we have a loving Heavenly Father who who cares for us and who sees us in the midst of our hardship and uses it for good in our life.

Incidentally, James’s eyes were mercifully spared. In fact, his nose, his ears, his lungs, all are functioning properly and his skin is healing up beautifully. It’s definitely a little bit mottled, but the scarring has been minimal. And we are so very grateful.

Satan may have meant it for evil, but God intends it for good. And once you can see that, once you understand that hardships can be used to draw us closer to God, to increase our gratitude for his blessings, to develop in us his character, to make us aware of our dependence on him, to serve his purposes and to bring him glory, then you can begin to recognize hardship as a wonderful opportunity for all those things to happen and to welcome it as a friend and as a minister from God for your good and His glory.

I hope you will take that to heart next time you find yourself in the midst of struggles or difficulties of any kind, and that you will continue to trust God and praise Him for what He’s doing in your life.

Have a happy Thanksgiving.

I’ll try to be back next week with an update about that wedding. In the meantime, please pray for good weather!