With the weight of the world pressing down hard, expressing gratitude for many people during the Thanksgiving season can be difficult.

Gratitude often comes with an exception, or is overshadowed by pain and brokenness. Many people say, “I am thankful for____, but…”

My story is no different.

Last year at this time I was in Spain with my mom and baby girl.  Those days were filled with an urgency, a desperation to bring healing to our girl. Days of hope for a cancer free life. These days my heart is grieving. So, it’s no surprise these feelings of thankfulness and gratitude overwhelm me. It’s no surprise my mind races back to the days while in Spain with pain flooding back in.

A few months after my baby girl passed, we lost my sweet mother-in-law to cancer also. This year has been hard.  Really hard. A year of many tears. A year of many adjustments. A year of much pain and sadness. And also a year that strengthened our family bond.

What does Thanksgiving mean anyway? It’s more than over-eating and football! For most people it usually marks a time to reflect on all the blessings in our life. Reflect on all that is precious to us, all that is beautiful.  We gather around the Thanksgiving table with our family and friends…and count our blessings and express our gratitude.

We breathe in and give thanks.

I’ve been thinking about what is right in front of me. My first thought was to desperately focus on the blessings of my what is.  My Savior, the people whom I cherish, all the love that surrounds this place I call home. And the many countless other things to be grateful for. My heart swells with gratitude. But, then my mind shifted to the pain that also holds a piece of my what is. This immense pain makes my heart swell also.  Is there room in my world for both gratitude and pain? Is there room at my Thanksgiving table for both?

Separating this head knowledge of gratitude from my heart knowledge of pain is hard. A huge part of my life has changed. This change has left empty chairs at my Thanksgiving table.

What is today.

What is right now.

What is this moment.

I breathe in deep and give thanks and pray for my what is.

Looking around it’s not hard to see beauty and it’s not hard to count the many blessings that surround me.  But it’s also to not hard to see and feel my heart-full of brokenness.   I long for new joys and future blessings, and at the same time I long for what used to be. Dancing fiercely between both worlds.

Dancing fiercely with my what is.

I’ve come to realize through all my pondering, that it’s okay to dance between the pain and the joy. It’s okay to feel both gratitude and grief.

So I’ll breathe in all of my what is and cherish the blessings, the joys both of today and for the joys that I embrace from the past.  Because, these are my what is. 

This Thanksgiving I won’t try to pretend all is okay in my world. I won’t try and suppress my pain because someone thinks I should just for this one day. My gratitude does come with an exception. But it also comes with a promise that one day I won’t have to add that little “but” to my list of things to be thankful for.

For today, dancing between these worlds is my reality.

For eternity, I won’t have to dance and I can add that to my gratitude list.

Giver of Blessings, Thank you for the promise and hope in knowing that dancing between pain and joy is only something of this life. ~ Amen