Thanksgiving as a Gift to Save Us

Post Author: Cat Connolly

A few weeks ago the church youth group invited me to be their guest speaker. The teenagers had prepared a few questions to ask, and one of them was, “How do you keep your faith during hard times?” A great question. How did I and how do I keep my faith? I didn’t answer too well in the moment, waffling out something unsatisfying about believing in God no matter what happened. But it got me thinking.

How I might react to a devastating event is something I had wondered about myself over the years. I was raised in a Christian family and have always believed in God, but many people with similar backgrounds find themselves unmoored from childhood faith when the shit really hits the fan. Was I any different?

There was an impetus for the youth to ask me that particular question. Last summer I was diagnosed with a highly aggressive and advanced cancer of the salivary gland, while also being 6 months pregnant. As an English girl in America, it was a whirlwind introduction to the American health insurance system. Surgery, an induced early birth, our daughter in NICU, radiation and chemotherapy treatments while having a newborn, and facing mortality in my early thirties all accumulated into the most challenging months of my life. But now, over a year later, both I, and the existential angst, are in remission. The big ‘C’ always lurks in the back of my mind, but the immediate worry has faded. Life continues. And yes, faith continues too. But how, and why?

Newborn toes – handheld thankfulness

A natural reaction for many in the face of calamity–perhaps the majority–is to ask “Why me?”, but that was never where my own questioning went. Hardships and suffering are not doled out by God, nor is there a logical connection that we can trace between a person and what they find themselves experiencing. In the Bible, both Job and Jesus clearly debunk the idea of retribution theology. Instead, stuff just happens, but God walks alongside us as we attempt to navigate it. So instead of “Why me?”, in the ebbing of panic I simply grabbed onto believing that God was there, hearing the unformed prayers when all I could do was curl on the sofa. That constancy never wavered, perhaps because I needed it to hold firm when everything else threatened to crumble.

Of course, our reactions to events are rooted in our personalities, our life experiences, our mental health, and much more, but in these subsequent months I’ve found that my answer to the question of keeping faith is grounded in thankfulness. In the brief point in time of knowing how serious the cancer was, and not yet having had surgery to remove it, I reflected on the very real possibility of death and found that in some ways I was okay with it. The sharp point of pain was the thought of not seeing my daughter grow up, of her not having a mother, and my husband losing his wife. But for myself, for my own personal sense of acceptance, I found that thankfulness was the steady ground where I could plant my feet. Thankfulness was where I could find remission from fear.

God has given me so much. My life has been full and wondrous and if I had joined Jesus in only having 33 years, those years were enough to be thankful for. I worry, writing this, that it sounds flippant, but then my mind is drawn to our liturgy, where we celebrate the Eucharistia, the Thanksgiving, every week. When the break is broken and wine is poured, the people are invited forwards with the words “Feed on him in your hearts by faith, with thanksgiving.” Having gone through the flow of the prayers, confession, absolution, and the peace, the people are prepared in mind and soul, no matter what is happening in their lives. Then we come forward in thankfulness for the greatest gift of all, that we can know the presence of God for ourselves in that thin place where bread and wine speak of a love that overwhelms all else. Our liturgy gives voice to an unending thankfulness permeating all things. “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God,” “Holy, holy, holy,” “A sacrifice of love and praise”… Even amidst the crappy parts of life, we are still called to be a thankful people, called to praise our God for the gifts of existence and hope.
The act of giving thanks shapes the soul. It can transform panic into peace, scarcity into abundance, despair into hope. We’re all invited to the table, where bread is broken and wine is poured, and even through our fractures, thanksgiving rises like incense. The Psalms model it for us over and over again, that even in the same breath as mourning loss or voicing anxiety, the soul is drawn back to marvelling at the mysterious wonder of God.

Then Jesus himself gives thanks at his last meal, sitting at the table with both his beloved and his betrayer, before offering himself with the exhortation to “Do this in remembrance of me.” Thanksgiving is perhaps a gift held out to save us.

It was thankfulness that held firm enough to save me, and proved to be a haven of remission from anxiety and despair. It is holding firm today, even though I wobble at times, and I have a hopeful confidence that giving thanks will see me through whatever comes next. For I am persistently reminded that faith is less about having answers and more about trusting our Creator, who holds all things under the shadow of her wings. So, I seek a safe haven in thanksgiving, where brokenness meets peace, through grace, for it is right to give God thanks and praise.