Check out the featured posts and read more here:
Morning Prayer: https://blogs.crossmap.com/stories/gratitude-when-its-hard-to-praise-god-SeZjCF_AgYuNcauZmpmLR
Evening Prayer: https://blogs.crossmap.com/stories/gratitude-when-its-hard-to-praise-god—a-nighttime-prayer-ZfE28_e75XbiJD1P4OJRE
“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” -Thessalonians 5:18, NIV
When I was first diagnosed with numerous physical and mental health conditions, I didn’t know what to think. I’d graduated college and gone from a normal functioning young adult to a chronically sick one. Gratitude certainly wasn’t at the top of my list. Fear, annoyance, despair, and anxiety tortured my soul. In addition to excruciating pain, bitterness took root in my heart.
I asked God “Why me?” a dozen times a day. I believed the lie that I was being punished for my past sins and I’d never get better. Key emphasis on the word never. Have you ever felt that way?
For the first few years into these struggles, I wrestled with gratitude. I would read verses like Thessalonians 5:18 and roll my eyes. When I saw my father’s equally crumbling health, the discouragement piled on.
“I gave up believing God would heal me years ago,” he told me often. Now suffering myself, I couldn’t get his words out of my head. I didn’t realize I also started to believe them. Until the day I understood this:
