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When Positivity Harms Mental and Physical Health

The world has been focusing on positivity a long time, and there’s abundant research proving its benefits. But is it possible there’s a dark side to all that positivity?

Evidently the answer is “yes,” and it’s been given a name—toxic positivity.

Definition of Toxic Positivity—

While there are different definitions (I provided one from What’s Your Grief? in my last two blog posts), today I’ll give you the definition I found on thepsychologygroup.com website.

“The overgeneralization of a happy, optimistic state that results in the denial, minimization and invalidation of the authentic human emotional experience.”

As they point out, when anything is carried to the extreme, a problem emerges. In this case, the problem occurs when forcing positive “vibes” and positive thinking and focusing only on positive platitudes can cause you to silence, cover up or deny human emotion and experience. Yours, or someone else’s.

It becomes detrimental and unhealthy—physically, emotionally and spiritually.

What does toxic positivity look like?

How do you know if you’re forcing yourself to be positive or trying to push someone else this direction?

Here are some clues and red flags:

When you try to hide or mask your true feelings.
When you don’t allow someone else to express her true feelings.
When you try to convince yourself that you just need to push ahead and get on with life; when you stuff or dismiss an emotion.
When you tease, ridicule, or dismiss someone else’s emotion.
You force-feed yourself positive statements to cover your emotions, which are likely the opposite of the positive statements.
You force-feed others positive statements, to get them to “cheer up,” when the circumstances don’t warrant cheering.
Trying too hard to change your perspective on an event that has hurt you.
Trying to change someone else’s perspective on an event, especially when they have not asked for your perspective.
Internally shaming yourself for feeling a certain way.
Shaming others for their feelings, either by verbal digs, dismissive words, or negative body language. (Some would now label that behavior as “micro-aggression.”)
Trying to brush off events and feelings that bother you or others with statements like “It is what it is,” or “It could be worse,” or “Look at the bright side.”

Certainly there are times when events cause jarring or overwhelming emotions that, if we latch onto them too hard and for too long, can cause physical, emotional and spiritual problems. But that’s not what I’m addressing here.

I’m focusing on those hasty comments made without really listening to yourself or others and trying to identify the emotion and figure out where it’s coming from. What the source is.

Why Toxic Positivity is Bad for Your Health—

Just was gratefulness and a positive life outlook can be beneficial to your health, swinging the pendulum too far that direction can have negative health consequences.

When you force a positive outlook on pain—the kind of pain that affects you physically, emotionally and spiritually—you’re telling yourself or others to keep silent about your, or their struggles. Sadly, this is often a problem among believers.

When you shut someone down from expressing their heart, you cast a shadow of shame on them. And that forces them to retreat into silence and secrecy, and possibly self-judgment and self-condemnation. They feel condemned by your response. And that often leads to a breakdown in physical, emotional and spiritual health.

They end up internalizing that pain along with the judgment. And that’s a recipe for potential health disaster.

Some dangers of hiding emotions—

Hiding and internalizing emotions or dismissing feelings and lead to a host of problems, like:

Increased body stress and inflammation
Increased difficulty avoiding stressful thoughts
Increased psychological arousal
Increased depression
Increased anxiety and obsessive behaviors
Fear
Physical illness and disease, like cancers, PTSD, etc.
Increased self-isolation and avoidance
Shutting down
Stress of keeping up a fake persona
Loss of connection to others, and to ourselves
Emotional and physical burnout
Damage to the human spirit

What helps relieve emotional stress?

One study conducted by researchers found that when people were allowed and encouraged to express themselves through emotional and whole body responses—like facial expressions, crying, and verbal responses—they were able to relieve the internal stress they were experiencing.

The group not allowed to be free with their expressions had higher levels of internal physiological response. Meaning? What these people weren’t allowed to “get out” made them erupt on the inside.

That may be one of the reasons that people living with volatile individuals who are verbally, emotionally, or physically abusive have a reduced life span. They’re more prone to heart problems and other physically debilitating diseases. Scientists believe it may be the hormone cortisol that’s responsible for the health breakdown. A little of it’s good. Too much of it is damaging.

Much more recent studies indicate that people’s responses to others’ emotions make our own emotional response even more complicated.

Is shame ever good?

The question always comes up: Is shame ever a good thing?

Yes!

Shame can be necessary and productive when you’ve harmed someone emotionally, physically or spiritually. When you know you’ve sinned or done wrong and need to repent for your trespass. When your shame drives you to apologize, so a relationship can be restored.

Remember what the Apostle Paul tells us: it’s okay to get angry, but make sure you don’t sin in the expression of that anger.

Caveat—

Again, I want to say I am not talking about verbalizing EVERY feeling you experience, like lashing out in anger, having emotional outbursts, making sure everyone you encounter knows exactly how you feel about something. That’s just as unhealthy, usually more so for the recipient of your wrath.

I’m talking about feelings and emotions stemming from grief, trauma, honest disappointment, breaking of trust. Those types of events and triggers.

Wrap-up—

While I encourage everyone to be grateful, positive and hopeful, (more on hopeful in future blog posts), I encourage you to take a step back from that thinking and examine your feelings, and listen to others express theirs before making a judgment call or voicing a quick, positive opinion or offering positive-thinking advice—telling someone how they should think or respond.

That’s the loving thing to do for others, and for you.

Invitation—

Think back to times when you expressed your feelings to someone and felt those feelings were quickly dismissed or steered another—happier—direction. How did that make you feel?
When your feelings were dismissed, were you able to lovingly tell the offender how their response made them feel, or did you withdraw and then avoid talking about your pain?
Are you still withdrawing, or avoiding that person or avoiding expressing your feelings to them? Did you lose trust in them?
What helps you validate your feelings and express them honestly (not forcefully)?

Next week we’ll be finishing up this series with more examples of toxic statements, taking a mental inventory of whether we’ve been obnoxious offenders in response to someone’s expressions, and look at good, healthful ways to respond to hurtful people. And learn how to validate our own emotions.

Until then, be slow to anger, slow to speak and longsuffering. When you do respond, carefully choose your words.

Blessings,

Andrea

“Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, jut as your soul prospers.”


Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a health and fitness pro, speaker, award-winning inspirational writer, memoirist, and senior-ordained chaplain (IFOC). She helps people thrive physically, emotionally and spiritually and recover from grief, loss and trauma.

Toxic Positivity 101

The term seemed to have erupted last year, when COVID was overwhelming everyone’s life and exhausting us mentally, physically and spiritually. A Google search will produce pages of articles on it. Maybe you’ve heard of it.

Toxic positivity.

It’s not an official psychological diagnosis or academic term, but it’s gaining ground and being used to push back against the positive thinking teaching running rampant, until COVID roared onto the global scene.

What is toxic positivity?

A simple definition of toxic positivity, provided by What’s Your Grief?” is:

“Promoting the ideal or goal that no matter the circumstances, one should always and only maintain a positive, happy, or optimistic mindset.”

In other words, always, and at all times be “Happy, happy, happy!

Examples of toxic positivity—

Have you ever expressed your grief, frustration or heart-felt pain to someone and had them respond with:

“Well, you need to stay positive!”

“Keep focusing on gratitude and being grateful.”

“Look on the bright side.”

“It was God’s will.”

These responses are pretty difficult to hear and take when you’re experiencing painful, complex emotions in grief, trauma or due to another deep hurt. And the comments are usually not helpful. In fact, they may cause you to retreat inward, feel guilty or disillusioned, and to avoid sharing your emotions with anyone. And that can stunt or hamper your healing.

Why the sudden positivity backlash?

2020 tossed all of us into the same suffering path, crammed us into similar shock, disillusionment, frustration and fear of the unknown. In one earth-sweeping stroke, the world was brought to its knees, we learned just how puny and helpless we really are, and we got stamped with identical suffering—alarm, and maybe a hefty dose of fear.

To be sure, all of us experienced different depths of emotions as we watched the world succumb, friends and family members—or even strangers—get sick and recover, or get sick and die. Or watched as our part of the world boarded up into a ghost town. Or we were sent home to quarantine and work, were told to stay home permanently, watched helplessly as our world imploded, were robbed of our livelihoods, or we drained our emergency savings accounts and nervously awaited relief checks—so we could keep the house lights on and purchase groceries. Or we took a number on the unemployment line.

Who among us didn’t learn how to ZOOM in short order, just to stay connected?

And this is where the pep talks started to beat some of us down, or rile us up:

When we were told to stay upbeat in the midst of it, sing, smile, and focus on hope.

It could all sound pretty tone deaf and shallow, especially when the media and government haves were telling the have-nots how to think, feel and act. And to stop living.

While this advice was well-meaning and had some merit, sometimes it came off as being toxic and unrealistic. And that’s what toxic positivity does. It encourages us to ignore the pain, the hard things, the gut-wrenching emotions that MUST be acknowledged and worked through in order for complete and satisfying grief and trauma healing to occur.

Benefits of positivity—

I’ve written extensively on my blogs about the benefits of positive thinking and gratefulness. I extol them and follow the advice of St Paul to bear all things and hope all things—the ways to put love into action. So I’m not advocating automatically rejecting and tossing all of the positive, gratitude-focus advice.

So what’s the problem with being positive?

The problem arises when we’re too quick to offer unsolicited advice or cheerleading. When our mouths run ahead of our brains, and we’re trying WAY too hard to be helpful, even when we haven’t been asked for help.

As loving supporters of a grieving person, we need to be aware of and sensitive to the appropriate time to give positive comments and encouragement, like after the honest recognition of the agony or grief. We must not deny or ignore the suffering. It’s so important that we say, “I hear your pain. I see your agony.” Even if we can’t say, “I understand.”

Get the healing order right—

When we’re suffering, we’re usually anxious to get to the healing, the light at the end of the tunnel. We don’t want to hurt. And we don’t want others to hurt, either.

But as the good folks at What’s Your Grief? wisely point out: in order for a rainbow to appear, there must first be a storm.

You don’t get to bypass the storm or rain in order to enjoy the rainbow.

Toxic positivity to the extreme—

Can you imagine if you heard a friend say,” My husband is dead. Life is great!”

Wouldn’t that sound a bit wacky to you?

What she might want to honestly express is: “My husband is dead, and my heart is broken. I feel disoriented, lost. So alone.” In which case you can listen to her, hear her, weep with her.

As her healing progresses, she might feel more comfortable saying, “My husband is dead, and my heart is broken. But I know with the mercy and goodness of God, and help of loving, patient friends, I will heal and once again—one day—have a joyful, fruitful life.”

She’s not denying the obvious or its accompanying pain. She’s viewing life realistically, with a focus on her mental health, the present reality, and a healthy hope for the future.

Be an honest griever—

As a griever, be honest with yourself, about what your heart and mind are going through, while recognizing there is a road map to a brighter future.

And remind yourself that a critical part of that roadmap is taking some time to think about, pray about and plan your grief journey, so it’s as effective as it can be.

Where are you now? Where do you want to go? How are you going to get there? (We’ll explore these questions in more depth in another blog.)

You might have some horrible terrain to slog over in the beginning of your journey. And, yes, you might experience a few breakdowns and stalls. But as you press on with constructive meditation, support, and purpose, the road will get easier or smoother, brighter, and look more purposeful.

And as your emotions are identified and worked through, the journey will get lighter. The luggage will be easier to carry.

Never forget there is purpose in your grief work.

But toxic positivity forces or requires you to rush through that journey. And when you rush through any journey, you’re prone to ignoring warning and danger signs, traveling when you’re exhausted, or ignoring the dashboard warning light telling you the car is overheating or the oil is dangerously low. You might grab the duct tape to patch things together, which means the journey will be tougher. And dangerous.

And maybe you won’t even be able to arrive at your desired destination.

You’re taking too many risks and not living honestly with your emotions.

And you’ll definitely miss what lessons God has for you along the journey.

It’s about looking to your physical, emotional and spiritual well-being.

Scared of those tough emotions?

Others are frequently scared or uncomfortable of our grief emotions. They want them to go away, or be fixed. Fast. Hence, the toxic positivity statements.

But sometimes we grievers are prone to giving ourselves pep talks because we’re afraid of facing our difficult emotions. I encourage you not to be repulsed by the inevitable moments of desperation and despair. The deep sadness that accompanies grief.

These emotions are normal. They remind us we’re human. And humans need to embrace both the hard and positive stuff in order to be made whole.

In the coming weeks, we’ll dive deeper into the benefits of being positive and the negatives of being toxically positive. We’ll also learn coping techniques for dealing with our own and others’ too positive-too soon words and actions, and how to respond to others when they dish out that toxic positivity.

I hope you can join me!

Invitation—

If you’re grieving, take time to journal and jot down the emotions pouring through your heart. Make note of how they make you feel physically and spiritually. Practice being aware of them without trying to talk them away.

Until next week, be hopeful in all things, but always give yourself permission to hurt and grieve, when it’s right to do so.

Blessings,

Andrea

“Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, jut as your soul prospers.”

Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a health and fitness pro, speaker, award-winning inspirational writer, memoirist, and senior-ordained chaplain (IFOC). She helps people thrive physically, emotionally and spiritually, and recover from grief, loss and trauma.

Toxic Positivity and Grief

Have you ever revealed your deepest grief pain to someone only to have her give you an immediate comeback of super-positive or upbeat thinking they believe you should focus on? Something to get you over your slump?

What they may be guilty of is toxic positivity.

While there is no question that being positive and grateful is good for the brain and good for you physically and emotionally, it sometimes does more harm than good when you’re mired deeply in grief, and you’re nursing a raw heart.

Thinking back—

Do you remember a time when someone responded in a nauseatingly positive way when all you wanted to do was share your heart’s pain and have a listening heart hear it?

How did it make you feel?

I remember a lot of overly upbeat sentiments after my daughter’s death. And I remember the effect they had.

Shame.
Embarrassment.
A sense of lacking, or being inadequate.
Betrayed.
Devastated.
Misunderstood.
Anger.

The emotions list could go on and on.

Instead of encouraging me, most of the responses made me retreat into myself and believe that people couldn’t relate to my pain, didn’t want to relate to it, and were eager to have me get back to life and living.

My pain made them uncomfortable.

So I really shouldn’t share it.

Biggest culprits—

Unfortunately, and embarrassingly, Christians are often the biggest culprits of toxic positivity. They’re too quick to recite Bible passages meant to encourage the griever. To put their grief in God’s perspective. (As if the griever were ignorant about all those passages.)

While their hearts might be in the right place, often their mouths aren’t. They aren’t listening with their hearts.

And now the hard question: Are you guilty of doing that to someone?

Yes, there are many, many Bible passages exhorting us to lift one another up, but there is also that big one that tells us that we need to “weep with those who are weeping.”

In order to weep with someone, we need to listen deeply, and weep. And hold. And then, when the griever’s heart is receptive, encourage with more upbeat passages and thinking.

We need to be available to walk alongside them in their grief and trauma, not rush ahead, drag them forward, or get behind them and push.

But I don’t want us to get way ahead of ourselves here. I want to take time to explore this, so we can really learn and heighten our sensitivities and hone our responses to broken, hurting hearts.

What’s ahead—

I’m going to take the entire month of February to cover this new, hot topic, which you may have heard about. This month we’ll:

Define toxic positivity.
Give you examples of it.
Give you ways to deal with and respond to it (if the damaged griever).
Help you develop good handholding and empathy skills.
Discuss the benefits of helpful positivity and how to incorporate that into your life—at the right time.

Toxic positivity definition—

But for today, let’s just start with the current definition of toxic positivity.

While there is no psychological category for it, nor is there a formal diagnosis, the group at What’s Your Grief? provide this definition:

“Toxic positivity is promoting the ideal or goal that, no matter the circumstances, one should always and only maintain a positive, happy or optimistic mindset.”

In other words, “Happy, happy, happy!’ at all times, and in all things.

Is there anything wrong with this?

Well, no, and yes.

And that’s what we’re going to be exploring this month. In small, helpful, bite-size increments. Helpful for the griever, and the one the griever seeks support and empathy from.

Hope you can join me!

Invitation—

For this week, meditate on the toxic positivity definition. See where your thoughts take you on this. Maybe jot down some times you’ve experienced toxic positivity from a well—meaning friend, or when you think you’ve been guilty of it.

On a side note: After a bout with COVID right at the beginning of the New Year, it’s good to be teaching and mentoring again!

And for those of you who are caregivers, check out Guideposts’ bi-monthly devotional Strength and Grace for daily, uplifting devotions to help caregivers as they minister to and care for aging parents, patients, and family members struggling with mental illness, like dementia and Alzheimer’s. It’s a joy to be a member of the writing team contributing to this magazine. For more information, go to Guideposts.org.

Blessings,

Andrea

“I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers” (3 John 2).

Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a fitness pro, speaker, award-winning inspirational writer, memoirist, and senior-ordained chaplain (IFOC). She helps people thrive physically, emotionally, and spiritually, and recover from grief, loss and trauma.

Advent: Past, Present and Future

ADVENT. Defined as the arrival of a notable person, thing or event. Recognized by Christians as the first season of the Christian year. In other words, when it all began. The exact dates are the four preceding Sundays leading up to Christmas Day.

But it doesn’t end there. For the faithful the term also means the coming or second coming of Christ.

A lot of us have been looking for that lately. That second coming. A lot of Christians thought COVID-19 was the crack in the second coming curtain. The opening prologue. Some still think it is.

Having Jesus return now and being caught up in the clouds with Him and swept off to glory without having to suffer and die certainly seems a more appealing option than contracting and having to suffer through a near-deadly case of the disease, or having a family member or friend die of it. Of having to stay cloistered at home, out of touching range with family and friends, classmates, co-workers, birthday parties, funerals, graduations, church worship and Bible study gatherings.

Actually, it’s a more appealing option than life in a normal year.

A yearly reminder, and look to the future—

Regardless of whether or not this is THE year, (Hint: no one knows the time or the hour), Christians are always called to be ready, looking, working, preparing. As one of my favorite mugs says, “Perhaps Today.”

And it’s always a good thing to celebrate that first coming, the one that stood the world on its head over 2000 years ago. The celebration that reminds us of the Who, what and why of Christmas.

And then look to the future and celebrate Christ’s future return. Plan for the party. Keep busy preparing for it, inviting guests, getting them ready for the feast, rejoicing over our future hope.

Because either soon or soonish, or not as soon as we’d like, Jesus is coming back. He promised He would, and He told us to be watching for Him.

A personal advent—

This year I can certainly relate to that watching and waiting for a baby to arrive on the world’s stage.

On Mother’s Day, my older son stuck an ultrasound picture up in front of his computer camera during our Mother’s Day ZOOM meeting. My younger son and I immediately knew what it was. (The engineer, working without his close-range glasses, was a little slow to catch on.)

To say it was one of the best Mother’s Day presents EVER is an understatement. The other two were the ones immediately following my older and younger son’s births. Yet, now, there are no adequate words to describe the joy, and the heady anticipation of progeny.

We’ve waited and watched and looked for since that glorious May day, talking about due dates, shower gifts, baby paraphernalia needs, having another ZOOM meeting for the “It’s a Girl!” gender reveal, nail chewing during some blood pressure spikes, and the two and a half days it took for her to arrive after inducement.

We were on emotional pins and needles. And to an extent, we still are. We haven’t seen our beautiful granddaughter yet, but we will soon. With weighty expectations of holding her in our arms, singing to her, tracing nose and ears, touching and brushing silky cheeks, and feeling baby fingers looped around thumbs nearly make me swoon in ecstasy.

So, to some extent, we’re still waiting and watching, preparing. Expecting. With eyes and hearts wide open.

I shouldn’t be any different with my Lord’s return. Advent then. Advent future. Looking back and looking forward. Always watching, being prepared. Expectant. Cognizant of the signs of the times.

It’s easy to get jaded and do the same-old, same-old at Christmas. But I doubt anything will look the same to any of us this year.

And that’s probably a good thing.

Maybe a new, reinvigorated appreciation for the meaning of the day will emerge in our hearts and lives. We’ll be more grateful. More repentant and more forgiving. More joyful.

We’ll take a serious look at what we missed this year, and what we didn’t miss. And what we can now live without and can no longer live with.

And Who we need to bring sanity and peace to this insane and crumbling and ugly world.

The month of December—

It’s hard to fathom that this is likely my last post of this notorious year. It seems to have dragged on too long and also sped by. So much has happened—in the world, our nation, and in my family. But slinking toward its end, it is.

I’ll be taking December off, to enjoy that new grandbaby, my family, and life. To dig into Advent. To read the story again—the old one and the coming one. To prepare my heart, and offer thanks.

Because within both lies hope. The kind of hope only the King of Glory gives. A hope and a future.

Something everyone is craving right now.

Invitation—

I hope you have an advent study selected and are already into the celebration. But if not, and you’re looking for some weekly reads, you can access my Advent posts on my other blog “Broken Hearts, Redeemed.”

“Is There Room in Your Inn?”

“Advent: A Great Message for Today, and for the Future”

“Advent: A Season of Joy, Now and for the Future”

“The Advent and Maintenance of Peace”

“Christ is Born Means God is with Us!”

“Christmas: A Heavenly Timetable” (My nonfiction story that first appeared in a Chicken Soup for the Soul Christmas book.)

“A Season—and Life—of Hope” (Read this one right after Christmas.)

“He Might Come Tonight—Are You Ready?”

“12 Steps to Defeat Depression: Spirituality and Prayer, Part 2 (For a stronger start to the New Year.)

Until 2021, keep praying, keep preparing, and keep watching, waiting and expecting.

Perhaps today will be THE day!

And thank you, dear readers, for your support throughout this year. It hasn’t been easy or smooth sailing for anyone. And I appreciate you more than I can say.

Blessings and a Most Blessed Christmas to all of you!

Andrea

“Beloved, I pray that you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers” (3 John).


Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a fitness pro, speaker, award-winning inspirational writer, memoirist, and senior-ordained chaplain (IFOC). She helps people thrive physically, emotionally, and spiritually, and recover from grief, loss and trauma.

Thanksgiving History: Being Grateful for Life’s Thorns

It’s all about thanksgiving.

I’m going to guess all of you reading this post have experienced a major life event you considered to be more of a thorn in your side than a blessing you’d give thanks for. No doubt 2020 has rocked your world with COVID-19 and maybe brought accompanied economic devastation.

It hasn’t been a normal year for anyone, or an easy year for many. We’ve all been turned on our heads to some degree.

It’s been a thorn.

We don’t like thorns. They’re sharp and often draw blood. They might leave bruises or infections that take time to heal. They certainly make life harder to handle.

But there are profound life-growing lessons to be learned from painful, blood-drawing thorns, and joy can result from them. For it’s in life’s thorns that we learn more about ourselves, become humbled, and learn how to persevere.

They can also—if you’re willing—turn us toward God and make us more reliant on Him.

But even with these thorns, we have so much to be thankful for. So I’m going to focus this post on our upcoming American holiday, Thanksgiving. It’s a special day to focus solely on giving thanks; a day set aside to express gratefulness with and for family and friends, even if you have to celebrate and thank them via ZOOM.

While we don’t often think about celebrating or giving thanks for the thorns in our lives, they may be the first and most important things we should look to and have at the top of our “I’m thankful for…” list.

Even the Pilgrims, who are officially credited with celebrating the first Thanksgiving nearly 400 years ago, (we were supposed to have a big 400^th anniversary celebration for their arrival this year), had encountered thorns prior to that celebration. Deadly ones. And the fact that any of them were still alive to tell about it may be the reason they gave thanks.

Pilgrim basics: my heritage—

Thanksgiving is special to me. It should be, since I’m a direct descendant of two Pilgrims who sailed from England to America in 1620. Actually, one was an true Pilgrim (Separatist) and the other was a cooper (barrel maker) who evidently wanted a change of scenery and a new life in a new land.

The group was a little band of mostly like-minded pioneers who wanted to worship God without fear, persecution or worldly influence in a way of their choosing. They bravely sneaked away to England on a tiny ship after signing a contract with an English company to plunk down a colony on our shores and start successful trading and businesses.

(On a side note, don’t confuse Pilgrims—Separatists, who wanted to completely separate from the Church of England—and the Puritans, who wanted to transform and purify the Church from the inside.)

When I think about the accounts of that first Thanksgiving—the three-day feast the Pilgrims celebrated with the Wampanoag Indians—I wonder just how many of them were thinking: “I’m so thankful.”

As the History Channel’s website, history.org, states:

“As was the custom in England, the Pilgrims celebrated their harvest with a festival. The 50 remaining colonists and roughly 90 Wampanoag tribesmen attended the “First Thanksgiving.”

One of the attending Pilgrims noted a Pilgrim attendance of 53, but let’s not quibble in numbers.

It was customary for these English people to celebrate a bounty with a feast and recreational activities, so that’s what they did. Food and sport. And they invited the Indians. (Yes, they really did.)

They were grateful to the Indians, especially for one of them who intervened early and miraculously in their lives to teach them how to add fish to the soil to improve the growing conditions for a good harvest.

They hadn’t expected the poor soil conditions in Massachusetts. It was not where thy planned to land and live. Farther down the coast in Virginia was the landing plan, but they had arrived too late in the season and had to settle for the more northern location.

They also missed planting adequately for the growing season in cold, bitter Massachusetts with its poor crop-growing soil. Their food rotted and became infested with bugs. Then disease, starvation and freezing temperatures decimated most of their tiny band of 102 immigrants in the first six months.

And this is where it gets personal.

My great, great, great, great… Pilgrim grandmother, Priscilla Mullins, arrived at Plymouth in Massachusetts with her brother and their two parents, ready and likely excited to start a new life. But within months, the teenager’s mother, father, and 14-year old brother had succumbed to disease and starvation, leaving her alone with the other survivors, which included only three other women. Her family, along with the other dead, was buried in unmarked graves.

Priscilla was suddenly an orphan in a strange, scary land.

A year later, what could she have been thankful for?

Was she at all thankful for those torturous thorns in her life?

I can only speculate, but knowing that she was a devout follower of Jesus Christ, I’m going to guess that she had a few items on her thankful list.

My thorns—

About twenty years ago I started deliberately thanking God for the thorns He’s allowed me to get skewered by in my life. Why? Because it’s been in and through these thorns that I’ve grown the most emotionally and spiritually.

My thorns remind me that I’m really a helpless, puny human without much control over my life, although I often entertain, placate and blind myself by thinking I have more control over it than I do. The thorns keep my humble, relying on Someone greater than myself. The One who’s always in control. And that keeps me focused on and centered in my faith.

Surely, the memory and aftermath of being punctured by my thorns still hurts. After all, thorns do make you bleed. And they can leave nasty scars. Yet they have a tendency to remind you where you’ve ben, what you’ve survived, Who really got you through them, and where you should be going.

A (shocking?) admission—

What I’m going to write may shock or offend some of you, while others will nod their heads in collective sympathy and understanding.

As much as I still grieve and lament over my infant daughter, Victoria’s, death; as much as I still long to have her here with us; as much as I day-dream at every stage of life what she would look like and be doing, and mentally replay the dreams I had for her, I am grateful—thankful—that I walked that dark, horrible, thorn-ridden road. Because doing so brought me into a vivid, eternal life with the Supreme giver of life. A deeper, more fruitful, fulfilling and joyful life in the here and now, and in the eternal.

I’d like to think that it really didn’t need to happen that way. But in my heart, I know it did. I would have kept going just as I was, with one foot in the world and the other on a spiritual banana peel.

I’m thankful for those thorns. They remind me to Whom I belong, to Whom Victoria belongs. And they remind me that I will one day see my daughter face-to-face. And I will rejoice that we’ll spend eternity together. They give me one more reason to look forward to heaven.

Each year I move closer to that precious reunion celebration.

And give thanks.

Back to my Pilgrim family—

So what was Priscilla Mullins thankful for that cold fall day?

I can only guess.

Even though she was a firm believer in God, His word, and His promises, I suspect she went through the normal stages of grief all of us encounter: shock, fear, denial, anger, depression, exhaustion. Being a Christian doesn’t make you immune to suffering the effects of losing a loved one, of experiencing profound loss.

Being a Christian does mean, however, that you experience something in addition.

It means you grieve with hope, rather than without it.

Your grief is hopeful, not hopeless.

Priscilla may have sat at the table, thanking God for His protection over her and the other survivors, for the memory of her parents and brother, for the hope of the future, and probably for the new man in her life—John Alden, with whom she would have 10 children and produce more descendants in the United States than any other Pilgrims.

I often think of her and wonder if her unwavering faith and prayers for her children and children’s children paved the way for the blessings I’ve received in my life. Many of my blessings may be the result of her generational faithfulness.

For that, I also give thanks.

As my older son once said to me while he was in college, after making some big mistakes and suffering for them, and struggling against events not in his control: “I wouldn’t change a thing about my life. I don’t regret any of the mistakes or the problems. Because they all make me the person I am today.

And that person he is today just became a first-time father last Thursday morning to a beautiful, precious baby girl. Another descendant who made me a grandma.

I have been praying for this baby—Baby Ellie—for months. My heritage, my reward.

I’m counting a plentitude of blessings this year.

And I’m sure you can count both thorns and beauty in your life this Thanksgiving!

Invitation—

What the thorns you’ve experienced in life?
Did you consider these thorns blessings in any way?
How is it possible for you to be thankful for them?
How did God see you through them so they might become a blessing?

Next week, we’ll look at Advent and the importance of celebrating the coming of Christ more than two thousand years ago, and His future coming.

Until then, may joy and thanks abound this Thanksgiving Day. I’m going to guess you’ll never forget your 2020 Day of Thanks!

Blessings,

Andrea

“Beloved, I pray that you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers” (3 John).


Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a fitness pro, speaker, award-winning inspirational writer, memoirist, and senior-ordained chaplain (IFOC). She helps people thrive physically, emotionally, and spiritually, and recover from grief, loss and trauma.