My young-adult son has a job! It is not fancy, high-paying or a career-track position. It is, however, honorable. It allows him to pay some of his expenses. And after two years of being immobilized by depression, the fact that he can get up and go to work three days a week is a very big deal.
If I let myself, I could focus on all that my son has lost because of his illness. I kind of doubt that’s what God wants me doing, though. When the blind man was given sight, Jesus didn’t instruct him to bemoan all the years of his life wasted in blindness. He didn’t give the lepers directions to sit around griping, “If only this had happened 10 years earlier!” He loved them–and wanted them to love the Father–every moment of their lives, disability or no disability. That kind of love is never wasted. Which means they always had the most important thing.
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So instead of thinking about what didn’t or couldn’t happen in my son’s life because of his depression, I choose to be thankful that my son is in a better place emotionally today than he was before. That might last, or it might not. But good things don’t have to last to make them worthy of a shout of thanksgiving; if today is good, today I will be thankful. Perhaps, like love, thankfulness is never wasted.
