Two years ago, I turned thirty, and in the months leading up to my birthday, I STRU-GGLED. My thirties loomed before me, mocking me with all the dreams I hadn’t seen fulfilled in my twenties. I hadn’t published a book yet. I wasn’t a professional working actress. My husband and I were renting a room from my mom. I was not where I imagined I would be 29 going on 30.
All I could see was lack, unmet expectations, and disappointment. I was in a funk, believing and feeling like I had wasted so much time and accomplished nothing.
And then one day, about two weeks before my birthday, the Lord had a talk with me. He said, “Sarah, look where you were ten years ago when you were nineteen and getting ready to enter your twenties.”
So I thought about it. I thought about the depression, social anxiety, emptiness, self-hatred, loneliness, and nervous breakdown I didn’t know was coming. I was a shell of who I wanted to be, begging God to show me if He was really a God who heals the brokenhearted.
Then the Lord said, “Look at where you are now.”
So I thought about it. I thought about my boldness, my passion, my abandon before the Lord. I thought about my care for people and my love for who God created me to be. I thought about my joy, peace, and hope. I thought about how God had healed me from childhood trauma that I didn’t know if I could ever be free from. I may not have accomplished my external goals, but I had become and still was becoming the person little girl I had dreamed of being.
As I reflected on this transformation, the Lord said to me, lovingly but firmly, “Sarah, don’t you dare tell Me that we wasted your twenties.”
It’s hard to describe what happened in my heart when that statement hit me. Massive conviction and repentance brought me to my knees in tears, and yet I also began to laugh. Like that deep laugh that comes from your spirit. I laughed from relief, joy, and endless gratitude.
I think gratitude can be hard for us Christians sometimes. This truth of God coming down as a man to die for our sins becomes … cliché. The cross that we see on jewelry or t-shirts or in our churches becomes another symbol our eyes gloss over in familiarity. Being saved from hell becomes a reality that just doesn’t seem to affect our present reality.
But the truth of the cross is that Jesus didn’t just save us from future hell. (Though if that’s all He saved us from, it would still be enough to praise Him for all eternity.) He saved us from hell here. He takes our broken lives that we’ve made an absolute mess of, our histories of neglect, abuse, betrayal, and abandonment, and He says, “This is not who you are anymore.” His blood
covers everything.
He took me from a terrified, isolating, depressed teenager to a strong, confident, loving twenty-nine-year-old woman. How could I not say thank you for my twenties, the very years I spent nestled under His wings, healing and falling in love with Him?
And yet, I think gratitude is more than a “thank you.” It’s a heart posture, a mindset, a way of living. It’s getting on the altar every day, offering yourself as a living sacrifice to the Lord because He is worthy of the reward of His suffering. It’s saying, “God, You can have my whole life because I can never get over what You did for me and what You saved me from.”
Gratitude doesn’t mean our lives are problem-free. We still have pain to walk through, situations we’re waiting for breakthroughs in, and disappointments to process. But it reorients our hearts and switches our perspectives to see through the lens of the cross. It draws us near to the heart of the Father.
The Bible is full of verses that talk about gratitude, but as I was preparing my heart to write this, these are the verses I could not shake:
Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ (Eph. 2:12–13 ESV).
Maybe gratitude starts with remembering where we came from as strangers to God’s covenant and with no hope. And then remembering where we were headed, both in this life and in the afterlife. Maybe gratitude starts with asking God for a fresh revelation of how we’ve been brought near by the precious blood of Jesus.
And for that, saying “thank you” isn’t enough, but it’s a good place to start.