Thankful

With it being Thanksgiving, it seems appropriate to write about the things I'm thankful for this year. Yet while my heart is overflowing with thanks for so many things, I'm still finding it difficult to share those with the world.

Don't get me wrong, this has been a year of great abundance. After all, my husband and I were married within the last year! We moved into a new apartment, and we're learning to live together and making a happy home. We rejoiced over the births of our first niece and our second nephew. I had a health scare that opened my eyes to the fragility of our lives, but I witnessed prayers being answered as tests came back negative for cancer.

But this year has also been unexpectedly hard. This November marks three years since my eyes were first opened to Christ, and it marks the end of the most transformative year I've experienced since my baptism. That transformation has been hard earned and poorly received. I was pushed away by friends over the last twelve months, who tired of my growing faith. I ducked my head and tried as hard as I could to shut out the noise as people around me sneered through the election season and made nasty comments about Christians. I've been judged and chided by people who hardly know me, simply for believing in God.

Despite the many blessings of the last year, I've carried a deep, aching sorrow for months. I've been too afraid to show it to the world, instead tucking it in close to my heart. I've lost trust in my friends and family and learned to keep silent my true thoughts and feelings, all because I feared further rejection. 

In the depths of these trials, I found a faith I didn't know I had. I learned to lean on God and to share my heart with him, because I found it to be the only safe place I could turn. In His hands I feel myself turning the corner, however slowly, to cast off this burden of sorrow. I'm thankful for many things this Thanksgiving, but most of all I'm thankful for His love and strength that has carried me through these hard times.