Thank you for the hard daysbecause of the heaviness in my chest, because of the turmoil in the field, because of the rocky waves as I sail. I’m thankful for the night I can’t sleep because the storm won’t let up. Thank you for the overflowing tears, for making me understand why behind. Thank you for letting me go through your program, for refining me painfully through the fire. Thank you because you made me see how different your face is when I am suffering and unhappy.
Thank you for the darkness – for missing stars, for closed doors, for crooked, for ends. Thanks for letting me know it wasn’t meant for me before it was too late. Thank you for letting me cry with disappointment. Thank you for saving me before the building collapsed. I’m thankful for the people who thought I didn’t fit in—because that meant I belonged to someone else, to something else, somewhere else. Thank you for allowing me to stumble as I chase things that you know are not meant for me to touch my hands or my heart to love because that’s when I realized that it shouldn’t hurt to be rejected, that not all battles must be won, that not all that we pursue are beneficial to us.
Thank you for suffering – for the nights I beg to ‘stop’, for the days I sing ‘enough’, for the moments of brokenness and surrender. Thank you for making me realize that I am hopeless. How needy and incomplete I am without you. Thank you for the hallelujahs to the repetition and performance behind and between the songs. Thank you, Lord, for allowing me to be clouded in my brokenness because that is when we come to understand that I can’t fix myselfthat I can’t mend my scars or wipe away my tears. That’s when I see that you’re still watching, and you’re adjusting, and you’re moving, and you’re working until you see what you thought of me.
Thanks for the diversion – for wandering that caused confusion, for confusion that caused insecurity, for insecurity that caused my knees to fall to the ground. Because you made me realize that there is nothing wrong with opening your arms, crying ‘God lead me’. Thank you because you know better than I do, you know when it’s time to go or stay. Waiting or working. Running or walking. You know everything.
Thank you for being weak – for giving me more than I can take, not removing my thorns, showing me my demons, and guiding me in the mirror. Thank you for making me realize who I really am without you, how much he suffers and will never know. Thank you because you made me realize how your strength is truly perfected in my weakness. By showing me how badly I need you to come and do something else.
Thank you for the hard truth – by canceling all the lies we want to hear, by opening our eyes we want to close badly. Thank you for lighting up the darkest rooms. Because it is a reminder that we are the light of the world and that is not just another quoted quote, but a statement that should hold its impact and move hearts. Move people. Shake us up. In action.
Thank you for the hard days – by using it to remind me that He is an incomprehensible God, a God who gives us more, who wants us to know Him better. Discover Him deeply, in a new light, through experience and struggles.
Thank you for making me see that I was not buried here but actually planted, right in this very place of pain and discomfort. Right in this place of inability to work. Right in this field of humanity. And by reminding me that I am meant to grow here, that I am meant to blossom and be refined throughout my life.
Thank you for the bad days, God. Because the bad days make all the good days worth it. Because it makes all the difference and makes happiness even more special and peace even more important.
So, thank you.
