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RANDY HUFF: The Indispensable Attitude of Gratitude

I want to learn to be thankful and taste the surpassing joy of a grateful heart.

The joy of Thanksgiving has been deep in my soul since a teen-age November on my Grandpa’s Kansas farm. While Grandma, Mom, and others prepared a feast in the warm kitchen, Grandpa fired up the old John Deere and powered a buzz saw with a long, heavy belt. My Dad and Uncles joined in and we cut limbs for hours. I loved the work so much it hurt, a deep joy I hoped would never end, a sense of grasping the eternal for a moment before it is gone. Those times are the right stuff of life. They feed body and soul: teach, nurture, strengthen. They remind us why it is good to be alive, and they keep us going, even on our worst days.

I needed that thirteen years later when my Dad died the day after Thanksgiving. He had been recovering from a terrible injury and was due to begin rehab the next week. And then the call came: “Your Dad suffered a seizure and did not recover. I am so sorry.” My wife and I embraced and wandered through the mist, arranging a flight back to Kansas. In those hours my Grandma called, the one who always had the right words. “I am sure there is nothing I can say to help you work through these moments.” And she was right. There were no words. In the midst of hopeful expectation, two young boys still at home with Mom, one grandchild and another on the way, my Dad was gone. This was zero-option full stop, the deep pain of soul known by those who have lost.

And so I reflect on this at Thanksgiving time and wonder how we navigate life with these extremes. Joys that make life rich, mixed with pains that can make one wonder, on the worst days, why we are even here. A careless answer would not be no answer at all, but we seek answers still. In Peter Kreeft’s winsome book “Making Sense out of Suffering” he wisely refuses to give answers but instead offers “clues” to this problem. And so it is true. We make it through with clues, possibilities, hopes. Such is the nature of faith, an impossible belief that the impossible, after all, will come to pass.

The remarkable British journalist of a century past, G. K. Chesterton, offered clues about the whole gamut of life, and he was often keen to remind us gratitude is indispensable. “Gratitude,” he said, “being nearly the greatest of human duties, is also nearly the most difficult.”

Indeed how can we be grateful in the midst of death, suffering and disappointment? One clue is to remember life itself is an incomparable gift, something we could never create and which we should celebrate with feasts and work and laughter. Even watching – (better to play!) – football helps us celebrate this gift of life and remember our blessings.

What can you and I do to cultivate this vital attitude of gratitude? Here are a few things I will try this year:

  • Find someone who feels the ache of loneliness and share a gift and a listening ear. “To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.” The best gift you have is yourself. When you give you affirm the value of yourself and others, and you say “thank you” to the God who gave both.
  • Dare to celebrate, even with a feast. But don’t enjoy gifts and pleasures without gratitude for God who gave them. After all, we do not create them on our own, and thinking we do is it’s own painful dead end.
  • Say grace before a meal, even if you are not accustomed to it. This simple gesture reminds us our life and livelihood is a gift, and it directs our attention to the Giver, helping us see the world as it really is.

Do you long for the eternal, the joy for which there is no word, only yearning? I do. And I believe Thanksgiving offers a window, a reminder that we can know this joy even in the midst of death and loss. But we can never see the world aright without this “difficult duty,” gratitude to God who made life possible. This year I want to learn again to be thankful and taste the surpassing joy of a grateful heart.

Randy Huff

Randy Huff and his wife lived for 5 years in Roanoke (Hollins) where they raised 2 sons. Randy served as Dean of Students at a Christian school and then worked in construction. For the last 9 years he has served as pastor of a church in North Pole, Alaska.

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