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TITLE: Thankful? Yes | Previous Challenge Entry
By Margo McKenzie
10/28/23
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Thankful? Yes
Margo Johnson McKenzie

As a child when I’d complain about one thing or another, my mother would say, “Count your blessings.”

“What blessings?” I’d say. “We never go out to eat. We never go to Coney Island.”

And she’d respond, “You’re happy and you don’t know it.”

“What kind of happiness is that?” I’d say.

For Memorial Day, most of my friends wore their newly purchased white sneakers and shorts, so they went to the parade in style, ushering in the summer. I went to the parade in hand-me-downs. Once there, though, I was completely enthralled by the crowds on Eastern Parkway jockeying for front-row curb space, so they could completely enjoy the boom of snare drums, the precision of the marching band of war veterans, and the joy of the bagpipes. After the parade, my friends and I would play on our block where a few cars passed. With cardboard-covered holes in my sneakers, I played double-Dutch, hopscotch, steal-the-bacon, hide-and-go seek, skelly, hot peas and butter, concentration, punchball, and more. And when they went away for summer trips and returned, we’d make up for lost time.

Without really understanding my mother’s words as a child, I was living them. As an adult, the idea of being thankful--even though-- resonated with me when I read Psalms 3. On one hand, the speaker complains about the people who rise up against him, but when he contemplates things a little more deeply, he is able to say to God: “You are a shield around me, my glory, the one who lifts my head” (vs 3 NIV). The focus is no longer on his circumstance but on his spiritual stance, and how God shows up to empower and uplift him. It takes a difficult situation to bring out the bright side, one he might have, otherwise, overlooked. When the opposite of what is expected occurs, he is able to give thanks.

The Apostle Paul provides yet another thankfulness example for me. I see a man who is able to look beyond stone walls and iron bars and write these uplifting words to the Philippians, “I give thanks to my God for every remembrance of you” (1:3). Remembering their faith fuels him and reminds him why he is in prison, to begin with. This verse coupled with the one from Psalms teaches me that there’s an irony to thankfulness. I needed the dark moments in life in order to appreciate those bright ones.

And, if I practice the Habits of the SPIRIT*, Silence, Prayer, Inhaling, Reading, Inquiring in the way I have been taught, I can get to Thanksgiving every time, and despite the irony, I can find those blessings my mother told me to count.

*an acronym I learned at my church

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