You are Invited to Gratitude: Three Ways to Practice Thankfulness in the Hard Places

There have been seasons when gratitude has come easily for me. I could look around and quickly name the blessings—the people I loved, prayers God had answered, opportunities He had given, and moments that simply felt good.

And then there have been other seasons.

Seasons when I knew I should be thankful, but if I am truthful, thankfulness was not what I was feeling. I was disappointed, tired, hurt. And maybe even a little frustrated with God. I could make a gratitude list. But why? The hard seemed heavier than I could be thankful for.

Perhaps you have been there too.

I am learning that gratitude does not ask us to pretend the hard things are good. It does not require us to call heartbreak a blessing or disappointment a gift. Gratitude simply invites us to notice that even when life is hard, God is still here.

Maybe that is where gratitude begins—not with denying what hurts, but with noticing what remains.

What is Gratitude?

There are some misnomers surrounding gratitude. Many of us may have been taught to “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thess. 5:18). Whatever is happening, give thanks for it. However, that is not what this verse says. It says give thanks in all circumstances.

I have walked through seasons when gratitude felt much harder to find. And it was much harder when shame surrounded me because thankfulness was not always what filled my heart. Sometimes I felt disappointed, weary, hurt, or confused by what was happening. I could not figure out how to be thankful for the weight of what I was carrying.

Maybe you know that feeling too.

But gratitude does not require us to pretend everything is good. We do not have to be thankful for our pain, minimize our disappointment, or manufacture thankfulness for circumstances that genuinely hurt. Yet we can be thankful in these moments. And that is quite the difference!

Gratitude allows us to see God’s presence, His provision, and His promises even in the hard places. In these very difficult spaces, when we practice gratitude, we experience “the peace of Christ that rules our hearts” (Colossians 3:15).

Perhaps today, together we can practice and “attitude of gratitude.” Not by denying our pain, but by noticing God’s goodness in it.

Three Ways to Practice Gratitude

1)    Find gratitude in the small things

When we are facing insurmountable life circumstances, it is so difficult to be thankful. We may be enduring so much hard, that thankfulness is the last of desires. And, as noted earlier, if we have been taught to be thankful for these things, we decide thankfulness is not for us!

However, how could our attitude toward thankfulness shift if we do as 1 Thess. 5:18 states, “Be thankful in all circumstances.” With this there is more space to acknowledge our hurts, our pains, our devastations. We can name those without shaming ourselves for doing so. Then, we make room to notice the small things. As we practice noticing the small things, we begin to slowly shift our focus from only what hurts, to noticing what helps and heals.

2)    Praise for the promises

When we are in the fiery furnace, the lion’s den, the valley, it is hard to recall God’s promises, let alone praise him for them. A line from Hillary Scott’s song “Thy Will” comes to mind, “I know you’re good, but this don’t feel good right now.” I have said that many times. And even in these moments, we can cling to the promises of God.

These promises are not filled with platitudes and cliches. Jesus declares, “In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). The promise is not that we will not have troubles; it is that he has overcome them. He promises to meet our needs (Phil. 4:19), to give us rest (Matth. 11:28), to provide peace (Phil. 4:7), to love us throughout eternity (Romans 8:38-39). There are so many more of His promises that could be written here, but this is a place to start where, even in our pain, we can begin to be thankful for his promises.

3)    Write it to remember it

The attitude of gratitude is more than a catchy phrase. Its benefits are scientifically proven. When we practice gratitude deliberately, it releases neurotransmitters such as serotonin that signal the brain to produce dopamine. This increases our feelings of happiness and contentment. It also helps calm the back of our brain (our limbic system) from anxiety, worry, fear, and more.

When we practice writing down what we are thankful for, we are physically engaging the brain to process these moments allowing more opportunity to remember and reflect on them. While the writer of Proverbs may not have had the brain and all the psychological facets of gratitude in mind, he understood the power of remembering what to be thankful for, “Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart” (Prov. 3:3). When we write down our thankfulness, we are writing those moments on the “tablet of our heart” allowing ourselves to embrace these moments of thankfulness shifting our focus from only what is hard to also what can be healing and hopeful.

Final Thoughts

Practicing gratitude in the middle of our pain is anything but easy. Perhaps today, together, we can practice an “attitude of gratitude” not by denying our pain, but by choosing to notice God’s goodness amid it.

This doesn’t mean we have to be thankful for everything to find thankfulness in all things. Gratitude doesn’t erase the hard. It reminds us that the hard isn’t all there is.

As we practice being thankful in all things, may we practice noticing the small things, praise for the promises and writing those moments on the tablets of our heart. In doing so, we have the chance to experience “hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure” (Hebrews 6:19).