A decade ago, I left a short-lived teaching career and welcomed my first baby. Making a home-based life didn’t feel natural in those early months.

I struggled to grasp at elusive forms of control—a jail of my own making.

• I anticipated birth would be a challenge I could conquer; yet, twenty hours of intense back labor and over three hours of pushing left me reeling (the hardest of six deliveries and the catalyst to midwifery care and home birthing).  

• I lost nearly all my pregnancy weight in the first month, but didn’t realize daily elliptical sessions starting at two weeks postpartum would hinder my milk supply (after a rough second month I breastfed into my second pregnancy).

• I expected to bond with my new baby girl, yet felt guilty for resenting the breastfeeding demands, hard-rocking chair, interrupted nights, and daily learning curve (sweet Annelise, full of grace and favor).

As my baby napped away the afternoons, I opened a new book,  One Thousand Gifts, a "dare to live fully right where you are" and felt Anne Voskamp’s words wrap around the lonely, struggling places in my heart. I was welcome in my own home once again!

The pages filled with stories of deep pain and wider grace. She unearthed gifts in messy, broken, dirty and even brutally hard places.

If “life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react,” as Charles R. Swindoll said, then how do we practice resiliency, even when life knocks us off our feet? 

We give thanks!

Ann Voskamp writes: “The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful and all things true, even in the small, who give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and now, they are the change agents who bring fullest Light to all the world.”

That quiet afternoon I took the posture of a child and began to count, one after the other, stringing pearl after pearl of thanksgiving.

Hidden within laundry loads and diaper changes was abundant grace.

Undeserved, free gifts shining in raw ways day after day.

When the second plus sign became a minus sign after only two weeks, it looked like all the pearls were going to slip off one by one—why God?

Blighted ovum, the doctor said.

Broken heart, I said.

Six weeks later another plus sign left us elated, culminating nine months later in my first homebirth and our first baby boy!

And through four more plus signs, the stringing of pearls on this strand of grace continued.

Hard and good, ugly and beautiful, loss and gain, doubts and answers, fears and freedom.

Counting gifts becomes my rhythm of war against the mundane, monotonous, and messy:

Spaghetti-sauce painted kids? Thank you God for healthy children.

Stubborn two-year-old? Strong-will for future leadership!

Vomit all over the carpet? Thank you for warmth, shelter, and cleaning supplies!

A child who begs for my chocolate? Oh the abundance of good things you have shared with me, even when I have been demanding, ungrateful and selfish!

So many strewn shoes and toys? Thank you for entrusting me with so many children!

Socks to match, dishes to wash, meals to cook, children to teach and errands to run? Oh what joy to take part in creating and restoring purpose within my home!

As gratitude shifted my gaze, the darkness that hovered on long afternoons was dispelled.

Seasons of perspective-shifting came and went as the Spirit of God revealed daily, hourly, minute by minute blessings.

Jesus was leading me into a life of freedom—a freedom that comes through giving thanks!

Fast forward through a decade of practicing gratitude to last October.

My second youngest son broke his femur and it was grace that cushioned the fall. I will look into this story, with all the beauty and struggles from that season, next time.

Temptations, assaults, illnesses and even deaths enter our stories and leave us searching for priceless jewels within the devastation or grief.

Hope!

When we have a lens to view both the beauty and the struggles with gratitude, we can count it all joy:

“Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.” James 1:2-4 MSG

As we live through a pandemic, Thanksgiving weekend, in Canada, is another opportunity to reflect on the position of our heart before God.

String pearls, even in pain, darkness and devastation search for healing, light and redemption.

A Simple Prayer:

Lord shift my gaze,

Help me behold life in the present through your presence.

Teach me to search for your beauty even in the struggles.

And as we capture moments of grace together, remind me of the pearl of greatest price—Your Kingdom come, Your Will be done!