When Gratitude Gets Hard : Learning to Be Grateful for All of It
The Table That Started It All
2018 was a no good, awful, horrible year.
And I blame my dining room table.
It all started on Thanksgiving Day in 2016. I was in the throes of all the preparations — wrestling the turkey into the oven, peeling potatoes, prepping the green bean casserole — when it was time to set the table. Problem was, there wasn’t enough room for everyone.
So there I was, dragging over a small folding table and attaching it to the end of the “real” one. That created a whole new set of problems — now we needed another tablecloth, and none of mine matched, and the table heights didn’t line up, and the poor soul at the end was half in the foyer.
That’s when I threw up my hands and declared, “That’s it! I’m getting a new dining room table before next Thanksgiving, or I’m not hosting!”
I knew it was an overreaction — the kind that happens when you’re tired and the gravy’s about to boil over — but I meant it.
So, the next summer, as the leaves began to turn, I remembered that promise to myself. I started scrolling Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace and finally found it: the table of my dreams. It was 60 inches long but could extend to 108 with four leaves — plenty of room for everyone I loved. I bought new tablecloths and rejoiced that everyone would finally fit comfortably for Thanksgiving 2017.
But between that Thanksgiving and the next, everything fell apart.
Our beloved dog died.
My dad passed away.
My brother’s marriage ended.
A dear friend died unexpectedly.
Two of my aunts’ health declined and they couldn’t travel.
By Thanksgiving 2018, our number around that beautiful new table had shrunk by more than a third. I didn’t even need all the leaves.
And so, I blamed the table. I had fought so hard to make space for everyone — and suddenly, there was so much empty space instead.
When Gratitude Gets Hard
Gratitude is easy when life feels full. When joy overflows, it bubbles up naturally — like a geyser in the soul.
But when life feels empty? Gratitude takes more work.
That year, my heart ached every time I looked at that table. The empty chairs felt heavy with absence. Gratitude didn’t come naturally — it came with tears, questions, and deep sighs.
And yet, even in the ache, something softer began to form. Maybe, I thought, gratitude isn’t only for the good stuff. Maybe it’s also the way through the hard stuff.
What Stephen Colbert Taught Me About Grief and Gratitude
Not long ago, I listened to Anderson Cooper’s podcast All There Is, a moving exploration of grief. One of the earliest episodes features a conversation with Stephen Colbert, who lost his father and two brothers in a plane crash when he was just ten.
What struck me most was how Colbert spoke of being grateful for grief. He said, “It’s a gift to exist, and with existence comes suffering. If you’re grateful for your life, then you have to be grateful for all of it.”
He went on: “I want to be the most human I can be, and that involves acknowledging and ultimately being grateful for the things that I wish didn’t happen, because they gave me a gift.”
He wasn’t minimizing pain or dressing it up with platitudes. He was naming the strange, sacred paradox of being human — that joy and sorrow are woven together.
Listening to him, I found myself nodding and whispering, “Yes.”
Because while I’d never choose the losses I’ve lived through, I can see how they’ve shaped me. Grief has stretched my heart. Suffering has softened me. Compassion, empathy, tenderness — they all grew from the soil of pain.
Those experiences didn’t just make me grateful for the support I received; they made me capable of deeper gratitude at all.
Three Ways Gratitude Grows
Gratitude, I’ve learned, has layers — or maybe stages — that deepen over time.
Stage 1: Gratitude for the silver lining.
This is where most of us start. Something hard happens, and eventually we see some good that came from it — a lesson learned, an opportunity opened, a blessing disguised. Losing a job might lead to finding a new calling. A setback might redirect our steps. It’s gratitude for what grew out of the pain.
Stage 2: Gratitude for who I became.
Go a little deeper, and gratitude shifts from what happened to who I became because of it. The experience changed me — made me more patient, compassionate, grounded, faithful. I wouldn’t have chosen it, but I can see how it shaped me for good.
Stage 3: Gratitude for the pain itself.
This one’s hard. I’ll be honest — I don’t always live here. There are still moments I never want to relive, days I’d erase if I could. But sometimes, I catch a glimpse of what Colbert meant: “Gratitude for the pain of the grief.” Not because it felt good, but because it opened my heart wide enough to hold both love and loss at once and helped me to be, as Colbert says, “the most human I can be.”
These stages don’t always unfold in order, and they don’t stay neat. I can feel gratitude for the gift one day and wrestle with anger or sorrow the next. But I’m learning that gratitude doesn’t erase pain — it transforms it.
Gratitude Takes Work — and Grace
Gratitude like that isn’t automatic. It’s work — slow, sacred work.
Part of it is our work: allowing the pain, naming our grief, doing the very real emotional labor of mourning. But the deeper transformation — the shift from “I hate that this happened” to “I can see the gift in it” — feels like holy ground. That’s God’s work in us.
I can’t give you a five-step framework or a clever acronym for becoming grateful for the hard stuff. But I suspect it looks something like this: faith, surrender, and trust in the slow work of God.
Over time, gratitude reshapes us. It doesn’t make the pain smaller, but it enlarges the soul around it — like the way scar tissue forms, strong and tender all at once.
Listening for the Gifts in the Hard Stuff
As we step into this Thanksgiving season, it’s natural to count our blessings — the roof over our heads, the food on our table, the people we love. And that’s good and right.
But maybe this year, we could take it one layer deeper. Maybe we could look at the empty seats and the hard stories and ask what gifts they’ve left behind.
What experiences have helped me become more human, more whole?
What hard things am I already grateful for — and why?
What pain still feels too raw for gratitude — and can I trust that God is still at work there?
However full or empty your table feels this year, may you know that gratitude can hold it all — the joy, the ache, the laughter, and the loss.
In my office, there’s a poster I’ve had since I was a teenager. The last line reads:
“If we listen and hear what is being offered, then anything in life can be our guide. Listen.”
So that’s my invitation this Thanksgiving: listen.
Listen to what the hard stuff might still be offering.
And may it guide you — slowly, gently, and faithfully — toward a gratitude that lasts long after the dishes are done.
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