How do you remain grateful to God when things keep going astray? That’s a question I’ve been asking myself a lot over the past six months as one negative thing after another seems to keep on happening in my life.
I feel like much of this began when my spiritual teacher asked me to work on myself without her assistance anymore back in late May. That was followed by a noticeable increase in physical health issues throughout the summer. Next came the discovery that part of the foundation to my house had eroded, which ended in approximately an $8000 repair. Then came the refrigerator breaking and having to throw away a bunch of food, which was quickly followed by my partner (who’s currently supporting me) abruptly losing his job that he loved and remained faithfully at for the past 11 years, and finally watching a relatively brand new audio receiver in my home go kaput in a blink of an eye.
What’s even more difficult than this though has been a feeling inside that God has abandoned me. People always say that if you feel that way you’re probably the one who’s done the abandoning, not God. Yet I have done everything I know to do to keep moving closer, through prayer, meditation, and a ton of other spiritual routines, which I diligently do every day. Yet the signs I have always felt of God’s presence coming through my dreams, or through various things in nature visiting me, or through other mysterious ways, have all seemingly evaporated. This hasn’t stopped me though from helping others and giving back, but even there a part of me feels completely lifeless. Thus, with my world feeling totally upside down, it’s made it quite difficult to feel grateful for anything.
Even worse, all of this had made me think that if a Devil or Satan or some strong form of Darkness really exists out there, that it’s making a huge push to get me to denounce my faith in God and give up things like my daily gratitude to Him. The fact is, these past two years have been so exceptionally difficult, frustrating, overwhelming, and mostly unhappy for me, no matter what I’ve done to stay spiritually connected, yet I’ve kept on seeking the Lord day in and day out, expressing my gratitude at the end of each day in a digital journal.
There, I write down at least 10 things from the day I’m thankful to God for, even on days like today when my face has been more of a frown than a smile, when my body has felt like it was beaten to a pulp, when my brain has tried to convince me nothing has gone my way, and when it really has felt like I can’t see the forest for the trees.
I’m not going to lie though in saying I feel a noticeable improvement by keeping this grateful journal up, because most times I don’t. But I don’t maintain this gratitude journal in the hopes it will make me feel better somehow. I do it because even when things are feeling so out of sorts for me, I always know it could be much, much worse. The reality is that God has never stopped providing me food, water, and shelter, which for billions of others on this planet would be considered luxuries. He’s also helped me to deal with some of my loneliness by providing me a loving partner, a loving cat, and a few loving friends and that’s more than what many have in life as well.
So that’s how I keep on, keeping on with my daily gratitude to God, because even in my worst of moments, when I wish I could be home with God right now, I know that there are countless people out there in the world who would love to walk a day in my shoes, who don’t have even a fraction of what God has kept on providing me thus far in life. And that alone is exactly how I continue to remain grateful, even when everything seems to keep going astray…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson