Growing up, I treated being grateful like a chore. You know the drill: “Remember to thank the host.”
“Thank your brother for sharing that toy.”
“Did you write a note for all the presents people gave you?”
It always felt a lot like being told to clean my room. Even at Thanksgiving, gratitude seemed more like an obligation—something to dust off once a year.
But then I walked through a few long seasons of challenge, uncertainty, missed opportunities and unexpected turns. And I no longer see gratitude as a chore but as a lifeline. Not a polite sentiment, but a survival skill.
Aim your attention higher
As a pastor, I’ve sat with people walking through grief, illness and loneliness. I’ve noticed something striking: gratitude doesn’t erase hardship, but it changes how we carry it.
In my own Christian tradition, I’ve been shaped by the Apostle Paul’s words in Philippians 3—written, of all places, from prison. He had every reason to be cynical, but instead fixed his attention on “the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” He wasn’t denying hardship; he was re-evaluating his life through a larger horizon.
That decision to lift one’s eyes higher has resonance far beyond a single faith tradition. It speaks to a human truth: where we direct our attention shapes who we become.
A scene from “The Lord of the Rings” captures this for me. In Mordor, surrounded by smog and smoke, Samwise looks up and sees a single shining star. Tolkien writes, “Like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach.”
That’s gratitude in its rawest form—not cheerfulness, not forced positivity, but a stubborn act of attention. A lifeline in the dark.
Writer Christine Pohl once put it beautifully: “Gratitude is a crucial way in which death and destruction do not have the final word, and cannot finally define us.” I held onto her words for many years.
Gratitude doesn’t remove suffering, but it keeps suffering from becoming the whole story.
Ancient wisdom
The Hebrew Psalms reflect this connection between hardship and thanksgiving. Psalm 42 comes from a place of deep pain—“my tears have become my food day and night.” Yet the psalmist can still declare, “Wait for God! For I will again give thanks for the salvation that comes from his face.”
So perhaps this week, instead of treating gratitude as an item on the holiday checklist, we might see it as an invitation: to slow down, to pay attention, to remember the gifts we did not earn and the people who held us up when life felt heavy.
For me, as a follower of Jesus, gratitude ultimately lifts my eyes to God’s generosity—the goodness of creation, the beauty woven through each day, and the hope Christians find in the redeeming love of God’s Son. But wherever you come from, whatever you believe, gratitude remains a practice that restores the soul and anchors us to something larger than our circumstances.
And it works even better when we do it together. So maybe this week, name one thing each day you’re thankful for. Share it at the dinner table. Write a note. Tell someone why they matter. Gratitude grows when spoken aloud.
In a world full of noise, that simple practice might just be the lifeline we need.
Tyler Allred is Lead Pastor of Grace Hill Church, a 127-year-old ECO Presbyterian congregation in Morgan Hill. He can be reached at ty***@********ll.org.
