With Gratitude

As I contemplate 2024, I am gripped by both sorrow and gratitude, a surprisingly harmonious duo. Like all years, this past year had its fair share of both hills and valleys. Unusually for me, this time its heaviness threatened to outweigh its triumph. 

It is in my nature to remain excitable and forward focused, but lately my present state is uneasy when processing the past year. Wariness and distrust of the future lurk in the back of my mind, feelings that are disagreeable to lie awake with at night. 

There was no sudden moment for our family that damaged our lives forever. No traumatic experience to shoulder all the blame. No loss so great it is unrecoverable. It was more of a continuous series of mud-ridden difficulties that heavied our steps. And by December’s end, it is hard to tell where the dirt ends and the sole of our boots begin.

Three days ago, while seated outside a cabin overlooking a mountainside in Ranger, GA, my husband, daughter, and I each set out to write out the ten best things from 2024. 

It was a much harder task this year than it was last year, when our fingers flew as we penned highlights from an exceedingly above average 365 days. I noticed this time we all paused first, staring at the blank pages before us, scrunching our foreheads, thinking real hard, working to activate gratitude. 

After four items, Lenox, my 8th grader, proclaimed she did not have anything else to put down, a proclamation I would not accept, though I understood. Consistently experiencing and observing racism at her mostly all white school on top of normal but painful middle school drama and meanness, figuring out unsteady friendships, and some heartbreak along the way made it a year Lenox would rather forget. 

Meanwhile my husband, Joe, toiled over his list. A necessary surgery on his wrist left him unable to fully use it for three months, which felt punishing for an hourly laborer. Five job changes in twelve months with no benefits and not enough pay took its toll financially and on his self esteem. Deeply aching for missing his children in Peru yet total silence on their visa process statuses feels defeating. Seeing them daily in video calls but feeling burdened to give them everything they want in an attempt to bandage the guilt of not being by their side has created bad habits. Not being able to visit Peru because we could not afford it. Struggling to learn English and grow accustomed to a new life and country two years in is tiring. He loved his work in full time ministry in Peru, and now he finds himself constantly questioning God’s purposes for him here. 

And there was my list- still empty. I started scrolling through pictures on my phone to remember what all good things even happened this year. Watching my daughter and husband struggle each month and being unable to fix things for them affected me. The pressure of being the breadwinner for a family of five on a salary that never feels like it’s enough has gotten to my head and poured out in tears more times than I would like to admit. Debt so astounding it is hard to imagine ever not having it consumes a lot of my thoughts. The feeling that the money I bring in, with inflation here and in Peru, with three kids, with bills and a mortgage and debt, with needed trips to and from Peru to see our family and kids split between both countries, will never be enough. We lost a dear family friend. I had several friends suffer unbearable losses- losses that are not even normal, and each loss gave me deep, lasting anguish for them. 

I deeply loved my students, but I quit teaching after a decade in the profession because of an education system I morally disagreed with more and more. I so desperately wish I could provide the changes that the students need; but the power lies outside of the teacher’s hands. Quitting was a massive relief but as time went by,  it was also profusely saddening. 

I am in a new role, in a position I am highly overpaid for, with a generous boss that matched my salary and gave insurance assistance just to have me- what a gift. I have had more silence than I have experienced in my entire life, and I see how much I needed that. It has been a period of recovery for me mentally, but I know it is just a stepping stone to what is next. 

Though I am using my writing and organization skills in this position, by far my best talents- leadership, speaking, and social intelligence, are unused. I have a natural ability to lead others and lead them well, to speak to and engage an entire audience, and a distinct ability to be relational with all people- making them feel seen, loved, and known. And that is where I am my best- leading people, whether through speaking authentically or through intentionally built relationships. I keep having this all encompassing prompting from the Holy Spirit fill my being and tell me that I was made for more. Knowing my purpose but not knowing what next move to make and waiting to see where God decides to place me and when is uncomfortably weighty. 

All of these valleys, Lenox’s, Joe’s, and my own are exactly why gratitude is of the utmost importance; it literally has the power to change our brains. Neuroplasticity is the ability of neurons to strengthen pre existing and create new synaptic connections. Meaning, the repetition of gratitude has the incredible ability to strengthen pathways to positive thinking. We can actually reorganize our brains to choose positivity, truth, and gratitude over wavelengths of despair. I believe that the bible reinforces this truth through the following verses:

Changing neural pathways is what we worked toward on that mountain top when we created best of lists- though unproclaimed to my husband and child. By focusing on gratitude, we were rewiring our brains to see good even in desolate places. Until zero items on the list turned into four. And then a few minutes later, four turned into more. And Lenox’s list ended at ten, Joe’s at twelve, and mine at twenty. Twenty best, wonderful, memorable, priceless things amongst a hard year. Things to cling to, remember, and be grateful for. We each shared them out loud, to where the good times resonated so fully that they took precedence over the ill memories, and it didn’t seem like such a bad year after all. 

This year, I wrote forty one full page entries in my gratitude journal- a completely new endeavor for me. I believe those frequent entries made hard weeks better and made confused states clearer. They taught me to appreciate little things as a small child would and hold on to big things like Mary who repeatedly treasured good events in her heart (Luke 2: 19, 51). And on the nights I have been sleepless, anxious, and full of sorrow, they are what I repeatedly redirect my thoughts to until I am able to fall asleep. 

I have my list of 2024’s twenty best out beside me. While acknowledging that 2024 was hard, overwhelming, and unkind in many ways, I can honestly say that there, too, lived boundless joy, utter faithfulness, and blessed goodness from our unfailing Father. 

In my gratitude journal, there was a prompt that directed me to write a letter of gratitude to my future self, expressing gratitude for things that haven’t happened but that I hope or believe to happen. That is the thing with gratitude, that it does not just exist for holding on to happenings in the past, but it expands the mind to believe in the goodness, the better, the more to come. This letter to my future self, written on 8/18/24 from a place of hope and expectancy that another year, perhaps even 2025, will surely bring to fulfillment:

Future Emily,

I am grateful for what the Lord has done in your life and for the ways you have allowed him to lead you. That book you’ve always wanted to write- you did it. Your blog is doing so well, and your speaking engagements are changing lives. Keep following the Lord and listening to him. You are financially free- isn’t it better than you could have ever imagined? I’m proud of you. You’ve made such a difference for the Kingdom. 

2025, I embrace all that you have for me, with gratitude. 

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