Overflowing With Thankfulness?

Josh had a better day. They continue to ween him off more of his medications. The infection seems to be under control. They still have him on one heart med and will do an echo cardiogram in the morning to determine if his heart is strong enough to take him off more of the medication.


The EKG today did not show any abnormalities. That is good news, and we are hoping that the irregular heart beat the other day was from low electrolytes. If things look good on his echo cardiogram, they will start lowering his heart medication and put him on a Holter monitor (mobile EKG) for a day or so to see if they can see any patterns with his heart.


Josh has been up most of the day and is eating and drinking better. Thank you for your prayers, they are helping.


Our faith has been tested along this journey. We have been forced to evaluate every aspect of our lives and re-evaluate or priorities. We have talked about our faith our entire lives, but we have never before experienced the challenges that we have faced the last few months.


This week as we were getting ready for our Sunday School class, we decided we would use our time together to share what we were thankful for. At that point, we anticipated being home (not in the hospital with Josh). As I was getting ready for the class this morning, I began looking for verses about being thankful.


I came across a number of verses in Colossians that talk about thankfulness. In Colossians 2 it says,


7 Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.


I'll be honest, it is hard to feel thankful, let alone overflow with thankfulness when you are in the midst of a trial, so as I read this verse I had to stop and think it through. I am not thankful that my son is sick. I am not thankful for the strain this journey puts on our family and finances. I am not thankful that the things that were normal in our lives are no longer normal.


So what am I missing? I would say that we are rooted in Gods word, and we have built our lives around a belief that God is who He says He is. So why are we not overflowing with thankfulness?


Maybe it is because it is so easy to focus on the things in our lives that don't last. We are focused so much on what we don't have or getting more of what we think we need, sometimes we get to living like life is all about what we experience or collect here on earth. In Colossians 3 we read:


² Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth.


If we focused our thoughts on what God was doing, and what He considers important, maybe it would be easier to be thankful for what He has done and is doing in our lives. 


So what should we be focused on? In Philippians 4 we are told to think about these things:



 ⁸ And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.

When we focus on things that are true, honorable, right, pure and admirable; thankfulness follows.