the susie solution

My year of “not my agenda but Thine be done” continues.  In July we got our middle daughter moved across the state to live with our oldest son, wife and granddaughter, which is working out delightfully for all concerned.   Marie’s situation was stabilized.  In August, we prepared to move onto our major summer plans:  paint the entire exterior of the house (first time since moving in in ’92!), hopefully taking no more than about 3 weeks  other than final touch-ups; replace some of the flooring in the attic storage area, another week or so; then attend to the TON of yard/garden work that needs to be done in the time remaining before the fall rains set in, which could be any time in September.  I was healthy and more than ready to get these things DONE.  Yessirree, projects, here we come!

So, of course, on Thursday, August 9^th, about 5 minutes after starting the very first prep work for the house, I sprained my left ankle and had to spend the next 4 days RICEing it.  I worked the next couple of days on more prep work, but that following Friday night, I noticed something wrong with my left arm that by Saturday night landed me in the ER being treated for cellulitis (a very nasty skin infection.)  Spent the next 4 days with my arm elevated, moving as little as possible to keep the infection out of the blood stream, where it is potentially life-threatening. (yikes!)  During the next week, my 18 yo dd and I managed to get the front of the house entirely painted with two coats, and had started on the trim…. when I bolluxed up my neck.  But good.  I could hardly turn my head to the side more than about 30 degrees either direction, and even less up and down.  That was nearly four weeks, a dozen chiropractor visits, traction table sessions, and massage appointments ago.  Needless to say, I’ve been on the disabled list the entire time, and am only now ready to start light physical therapy.  So much for plans.

Oh, the painting DID get done.  The final touches (at least as far as we’re going to worry about doing this year) got done this past week, about 6 weeks after starting.  Our youngest daughter worked hours every week.  Hubbie on weekends.  Oldest daughter and son-in-love worked two Saturdays.  Dh’s bro worked Labor Day.  My sis and bro-in-love worked a Saturday.  Our niece worked three days.  My mom worked a day.  I am more grateful to them all than I can express.  How could I NOT be?  Without all their help, we’d probably have had to just leave the project as the front wall for this year!  Would have looked might strange, since it is a complete color change.

When I’ve talked about the whole situation to others, especially if I mention how much of a pain in the neck this paint in the neck has been and how much I’ve missed being able to join in the painting, the most common response is an “at least”.  I should be thankful that ‘at least” I had all that help. That “at least” my injuries weren’t worse.  That “at least” the weather held out.  (Here in western WA, in September, that truly is unexpected!).  I even catch myself saying the same kinds of things.   “At least”, “at least”, “at least”.  Sound familiar?  For ANY situation we’re in that isn’t what we’d like it to be, that’s the solution we usually turn to make ourselves feel better.

I AM thankful.  Deeply and truly.  But I’ve decided I don’t want to be thankful “at least”.

We’re not called to comparative thankfulness, being thankful only in comparison to the fact that we might have had less.  Saying “thank you that at least life doesn’t suck as bad as it could” is hardly real praise.  It feels like accusing God of somehow shorting me in one area, but at least I’ll give Him credit for trying to make up in this other way.  Or that I’m denying the reality of what I feel by covering it up with a version of the Pollyanna Glad Game, as if I can’t allow expression of hurt, or anger, or perplexity without negating it with at “at least” that I’m thankful for.  And what if the “at least” that we’re thankful for goes away, and our situation becomes like what we’d been thankful it wasn’t?  As in, what do I do if my ‘thanks’ is saying “I have cancer, but thank you that at least I’m not in pain”, and then I end up IN pain?  Do I just keep finding some other “at least”, some other worse that I can compare my situation to to make myself feel thankful?

Another problem with being comparatively thankful is that we aren’t the best judges of what is “better” or “worse”.  Remember that old adage, “I mourned the fact that I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet”?  The clear assertion is that I am better off simply because I possess feet.  Yet who am I to say but that the man with no feet might, in fact, be experiencing a far richer life than I am, footed though I be?  By the same token, you see, we can envy the man with the fancy shoes – because all we see are the shoes, or the feet.  We can’t see the heart.  We can’t see the whole pattern of a person’s life.  When we are thankful that “at least” we’re not as “bad off” as we might be, we speak from ignorance – and perhaps we even question God’s wisdom in assigning us the life He has.

We are told “Give thanks in all things”.  Period.  “Give thanks in all things”, not “In all things, find something you can at least be thankful for.”  Comparative thankfulness focuses our eyes on our circumstances to judge them for what we think they could be.  Fixing our eyes on Christ enables us to be thankful for every gift simply because He sent it.  In Him we find endless reasons for giving thanks regardless of circumstance.  God’s goodness, love and faithfulness never change, nor are they ever second best to what He could have given us.  God never gives us “at least”; He always gives us His most!

To give thanks only “at least”, is to give the least thanks of all.