Finding Gratitude...

Growing up, I remember my mom always telling us that if we looked hard enough we could always find something to be thankful for.   I remember watching her as she worked hard and raised the five of us as a single mom...but she was always thankful.   Life didn't turn out the way she planned it or the way she wanted...but she was thankful.  It spoke volumes to people around her.   It spoke volumes to her family.   It spoke volumes to a young, impressionable girl who would someday need to put that kind of thought process into action.

I will not kid you, the last two years have been some of the most painful days I've ever walked.   Finding out that your love has terminal cancer is heart-breaking, scary and overwhelming to say the least.    Walking through cancer treatments, both chemo and radiation, is so hard as you watch your loved one slip away.   And there is nothing you can do.   Nothing to make them better.   Nothing to take away the pain.   You feel helpless and at times hopeless.

When the day comes and the doctor tells you that they have done all they can do, you just want to run away and hide.   Feelings of thankfulness are not oozing from your being.   We were told that Jeff had two, may three weeks to live.   As gentle and caring as our doctor was, I couldn't bring myself to thank him.  I didn't want to hear what he was saying.

Over the next few days, Jeff prepared me for what was to come.    He called our banker, our insurance agent, the funeral home and even someone about the burial plot.   He spent precious hours just talking to me.   Reminiscing and talking about my future.   A future that wouldn't include him.

We didn't get our two to three weeks.  We had nine days.   Nine days from the time we learned that the treatments were not working anymore until he left us for heaven.    How do you pack a lifetime into nine days?   I will tell you, I struggled to find something to be thankful for during that time.   I was angry...the doc had said two to three weeks...we should've still had time.  Nine days.  216 hours to say "I love you".   Not enough time.

On Thursday evening (before Jeff had the first mini-stroke on Friday), we were laying in bed.   Laying in the bed had become very painful for him as the cancer had moved to the bones and finding a comfortable position was no longer possible.   He turned to me and just said, "Come here".   He just wanted to hold me.   So for about 20 minutes, we just laid there, embracing, saying goodbye without using words...only tears.   Then the pain became unbearable and he had to return to his chair for the remainder of the evening.   At the moment, I could see nothing to be thankful for.   I was having to say goodbye to my love.   I was not feeling thankful at all.

It was not until recent days that I have been able to be thankful.   Can I be honest and tell you that I've had to dig for it?   It didn't come quickly or without tears being shed.   See, I've learned to be thankful for cancer.   I know, that sounds crazy and many will never understand it.   Somedays, I am not sure I understand it myself.   But the reality of it all is that cancer gave us time to say goodbye.   God could have taken him home in an instant with the pulmonary embolism that started all this.   We never would've known what hit him.   There would have been no time for goodbye.   Instead, He gave us eighteen months.    And if that weren't enough, He gave us a 9 day warning.    Jeff McFalls left this world knowing that his family loved him and having made sure that we knew he loved us, too.

Last night a tragedy struck one of my friends as her husband was quickly ushered to heaven.   No time for lengthy goodbyes.   As my heart breaks for her and I know that she is crushed, I found myself thankful for the time we had.   My friend will now have to walk this awful road of grief, but I know that with God's help, in time, she will find things to be thankful for.    It won't be the same things I am thankful for.  Our situations are not the same.   But we serve the same God and we look to Him for healing and restoration.   In time...all in good time.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 says, (from the Living Translation), "Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ Jesus."    It doesn't come easy all the time.  Sometimes we must dig deep to find it.   But finding gratitude is God's will for my life.   Lord, help me to have a heart of gratitude.   One that seeks after You and reflects your image.