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How are you doing with finding gratitude in your heart lately? We hope these posts focused on gratitude are helpful. I know they are for me as I write them! That’s usually how God works – He gets me to write about a topic that I need to work on!

Today’s gratitude post is on a struggle are you most grateful for.

Immediately, my mind goes to the Apostle Paul. He had this to say:

So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
2 Corinthians 12:7-9 (ESV)

Be grateful for a struggle or a thorn, as in Paul’s case? How is this possible?

I can tell you that it is only possible through the power of Christ in me. It isn’t something I can will to happen or force out of me. It is Christ in me. My flesh wants to complain about the struggle or question why I have to go through this.

In our Part 1 post on gratitude, we shared the song Blessings by Laura Story. You can click the link and listen again if you want to. Sometimes blessings come through the difficult circumstances of life.

In Part 2 we looked at an attribute of God. We focused on His faithfulness to us. If we put both of those ideas together – the unexpected blessings with God’s faithfulness – we can see why we can trust Him with our struggles. We know blessing will come from it because He is our faithful Lord and Savior.

The struggle I’m going to be grateful for is the struggle in parenting. My children were from four years old to eighteen when their dad passed away. I stood there looking at their sweet faces, wondering how we were going to make it. And since then we have had our share of growing pains! Angry moody teens and car wrecks. Travel abroad and dropping out of school. Following Christ and walking away from the faith. How can I possibly be grateful for these struggles?

I return to the idea that even the Apostle Paul asked for the struggle or the thorn to be removed but God said no. I have asked God repeatedly to just keep my kids close to Him. But He will never force Himself on them. He is the father to the fatherless even when they don’t notice His hand upon their lives.

So my struggle of parenting after loss is what I am grateful for. There are unexpected blessings and there are signs of God’s faithfulness when I am so lacking in faithfulness. I am praying that I see His faithfulness in this struggle.

What struggle are you grateful for today? I hope you will look at it through the lens of Who God is. And that it will encourage your heart today.

Take a moment to listen to this song by Mandisa. His faithfulness. Our brokenness. His grace. Our scars.