John 1:5

Thanklessness inflates an empty self with more of its own nothing … Gratitude infuses trust in a Good God, even when He seems full of hot air. In big things and small things, what comes easily and what seems it couldn’t be any harder, we have only what comes from God’s hand. What, from His Goodness, He gives us. Unlike most of the population of our world, where I come from we are inexplicably blessed with comforts … and cursed by the complacency and apathy that comes with them. With hot showers and warm drinks on cold days … cool showers and cold drinks on hot days … warm clothes and cozy blankets in winter … pillows for our heads, shoes for our feet … lights at the flip of a switch … clean water from any faucet … medicine when we’re sick, ice cream when we’re sad, and chocolate for any ailment, really. We have access to food when we are hungry, transportation when we need to get somewhere, and help at the push of a few buttons … the list goes on, yet we forget the Giver and Enabler of all these things. And, with it, we forget that it comes with a responsibility for stewardship in a world where so many don’t have these privileges and luxuries.

While there is certainly such a thing as true Clinical Depression, and the severe reality of that condition is not to be minimized; there is, also, another kind of depression that most of us suffer from at one time or another throughout our lives. Sometimes it is brought on by difficult circumstances, but other times it may be more a reflection of the condition of our mind, heart, body or spirit that is not always explainable by outward circumstance. Predominantly, depression is described as sadness, boredom, gloom, numbness or emptiness. However, it is significant to note that depression can also be defined as a hole, crater, sink hole, or even a pit. While not negating the reality of the previous description and its implications for the sufferer, the latter are words that have deep spiritual implications and are worth exploring.

Though I cannot always choose nor change my circumstances, I can always choose how I see and respond to them. Research has repeatedly shown (what scripture has made clear to every generation since the Fall), that the act of giving thanks, genuine, deeply known and felt thankfulness, is enough to pull me out of even the biggest crater-sized holes in my life. Every act of authentic gratitude is a rung on the ladder up and out.

“Thanksgiving is our acceptance of whatever He gives … giving thanks in everything is what prepares the way for salvation’s whole restoration … To save, ‘sozo’, means true wellness, complete wholeness … Our very saving is associated with our gratitude.”—Ann Voskamp

“One act of thanksgiving, when things go wrong with us, is worth a thousand thanks when things are agreeable to our inclinations.” – St. John of Avila

In The Holy Wild, Mark Buchanan writes, “What is the root sin? … It is thanklessness … refusal to glorify God … failure to thank Him … thanklessness is the place God does not dwell, the place that, if we inhabit too often, He turns us over to.” The place, I suppose, where I can be king or queen of my very own custom-made pit. (Yea me). Is Clinical Depression sin? No. Is depression always evidence of thanklessness? Not at all. Is there a very real spiritual aspect to some depression that can, perhaps must, be cured within the humbly surrendered spirit and and gratefully submitted soul? Yes and yes.

Giving thanks softens me and lays my heart open to healing. It flies in the face of – and defies – what all around me lies and hisses into the ear of my soul that God is not Good. It rescues me from my daily sink holes of doubt and disappointment. And craters of hopelessness. Forgetting, refusing, to give God thanks distorts how I see the world. And myself. And, well, pretty much everything. It makes this MY world. My life. My everything. Gratitude is not a feeling I wait for. It is a knowing I pursue. Gratitude always holds joy in its hands ready to offer the one who pursues it. Giving thanks re-minds me that none of this is mine. It is His. And so am I. I thank, and joy comes to greet me.

By God’s design, beauty sprouts through even the thickest ash. Gratitude, that is more than just the topsoil of cliché or obligation, springs up from roots dug deep in the cold, dark compost of pain and suffering. Roots, like tentacles, that hang on to the earth for dear life until the promise is fulfilled, beauty revealed. And joy handed over.

Thankfulness invites the presence of God into even our darkest hours. Joy is found in seeing God in this moment, in this very place. IF thanks is offered, joy IS always possible, even in the sad, gloomy pit of the now. Give Him this moment and let Him live up to His name … I AM.

May it not be said of us … “For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.” Rom. 1:21