The Thanksgiving Season & Grief

Intro

A holiday so centered around family can be really difficult if you’ve had a recent change in your family (death of a family member), in your own life (death of a friend or member of a different side of the family), or when traditions bring back memories of the way things used to be. Whether it’s your first thanksgiving without someone you love or it has been many years (but the change still affects you), it is completely normal to miss the person’s presence at the table or the way your Thanksgiving used to be. 

For any international readers, Thanksgiving is a United States holiday about celebrating the things someone can be grateful for. Often, extended families get together from all over the country to have a meal together and spend a few more hours together afterward to watch American football, watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, or play card/board games. A lot of families take the opportunity to reflect on the year together while enjoying specific foods.

Gratitude, family traditions, seeing family members, and remembering the past can all touch you deeply when you’re grieving. However, if you do feel a burst of gratefulness and joy around this time of year, enjoy it. There’s no requirement that you must grieve at any particular  time and there’s no law against feeling grief more heavily right now. Most Thanksgiving seasons, I feel a mix of happy gratefulness and grief.

 If a literal Thanksgiving day is not a part of your culture or you’re reading this at a different time of year, I hope these tips are still useful to you for approaching other celebration gatherings and even regular days.

Grieving with Family

If there has been a death in your family (especially if it was recent), getting together in a setting where your loved one would normally be with you will be hard for all of you. If you’re nervous about how things will go with the ones you see this Thanksgiving season, I hope and pray some of these tips help you approach those gatherings:

1. Pay attention to your other family member’s reactions

Everyone grieves differently. Some people will probably want to talk about their grief, ask you about yours, and share memories. Others will probably want to avoid the subject and make the day as light and customary as can be. Different things also help different people persevere through a difficult day. Stepping away from the celebration for a moment (or awhile) to find the strength to continue celebrating despite sorrow, sharing memories out loud, or receiving a hug are all a few examples of completely valuable and legitimate ways someone may find peace in emotional chaos and help themselves feel calm enough to enjoy/endure the present moment.

Just like people show love in different ways at different times, people grieve at different times. How someone will express grief is not always predictable. It could be a burst of moody rage at the Thanksgiving table that seems to happen for no explainable reason. It could be a family member who normally talks a lot being unusually quiet. It could be a few family members talking only to each other in tears or passion for a long time. 

Everyone does things for a reason, so it’s important to pay attention to what could be happening inside the people around you based on what they’re doing. Many of you are probably hurting. Your empathy and respect toward them could be a comfort to them on a challenging day.

2. Ask God how to love each family member in a way that helps them feel loved, cared about, and as emotionally safe as is possible within your family dynamics.

In the first half of Philippians 4:6 (NLT), Paul advises the church of Philippi to not ‘worry about anything; instead, pray about everything.’

This means that it’s helpful to pray about what you’re worried about. If a worry you have is how a family gathering may look this year, you can ‘tell God what you need’ (Philippians 4:6 continued) by praying for peace around the table, meaningful conversation, healthy connections, and for each family member’s emotional well-being. You can pray that each of your family members will be considerate of each other, acknowledge their grief for what it is and respond to it in healthy ways, and address any specific tensions or unique conflicts you’re nervous about. 

God answers prayer prayed in His Will (John 15:7, NLT, see endnote 1 for a quick explanation on how this verse connects) ‘if you remain in me and my words remain in you’ meaning continuing to pursue obedience and alignment with God’s perspective and plan) and He always wills us to ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ (Leviticus 19:18 and Matthew 22:39), so in praying about this, He will probably give you many opportunities to intentionally notice and serve your family members. After the gathering, hopefully you will have many reasons to ‘thank him for all he has done.’ (end of Philippians 4:6). Even if it did not go well, you can thank Him for getting you through it. 

3. Care for Yourself

In looking for ways to serve those around you, it’s also important to understand your own emotions. Knowing how you are grieving may help you understand the depth or method someone else is grieving with. Knowing how you are grieving can also make intentional, compassionate empathy feel burdensome when things are difficult for you as well. Caring for yourself and  intentionally reaching out to others can sometimes be a tricky balance to navigate if you do not find socializing rejuvenating or the gathering leaves you feeling emotionally or spiritually stressed. If you find yourself needing time away from the gathering, pay attention to that and take a few minutes to pray, talk with someone close to you, or simply sit and think.

Your family will hopefully be understanding and give you any space you need. If they do call you out for taking time away from the gathering, shame and embarrassment are natural, but it doesn’t mean that you were wrong in doing that. It is completely valid to grieve in healthy ways and acknowledge that you’re in a moment of suffering. Experiencing solitude or thoughtful conversation can be a way to connect with God and experience His peace that will help you persevere through the rest of the gathering.

4. Try to be kind to those who try to express love and care to you in ways you don’t find helpful.

It is not wrong to accept support from someone else. After all, Christians are called to serve each other, but we cannot do that if no one is willing to be served. Some of your family members (Christian or not) may offer you support in ways they know would help them. Sometimes these ways will help and in accepting those, God is giving you a gift in that moment. 

It’s also likely that what helps them or they think may help you based on how they predict you’re responding to grief might not actually. Instead, they may embarrass you or even hurt more. Those moments are definitely awkward. How to respond may be difficult to navigate, let alone responding with love and truth. It will depend on the person how honest you can be about their approach not being helpful. Usually, in the moment, it’s best to accept the support and recommend a better approach later if the subject comes up. I know that tip is very very general. I hope God will help you to respond exactly how you need to in a way that expresses gratitude, love, and respect to the other person while also ending the awkwardness.

Handling a Happy Season When it’s Hard to Celebrate

‘Happy Thanksgiving’ can feel like an empty statement if you’re not feeling happy this Thanksgiving. Seeing happiness, chatter, laughter, contentment, and excitement around you can make you feel like you’re the only one who saw the past as happier or sees an emptiness in the present moment. Most times, you’re not the only one there grieving. Even if no one else is grieving a death, everyone has hard circumstances going on in their lives. Some people can put theirs aside for a day, live in the present, and avoid worrying about the past and future for a limited time (pretending nothing is wrong). Others are still inwardly thinking about their struggles while appearing content. 

Not feeling happy does not mean the day is ruined though. Holidays are not requirements to be happy. They are (Thanksgiving especially) opportunities to feel joy. After all, on the first Thanksgiving, the pilgrims were celebrating circumstances that were getting better (their first corn harvest and friendship with the Native American tribe there), but only after a hard year of starvation, sickness, and death. They were grieving too, but still celebrating.

It’s okay to not be ‘all in’ on celebrating right now and to step away from it for awhile. It’s also important to know that celebrations are not about happiness, but they are opportunities to remember to experience joy. One of my favorite songs about joy, ‘Smile’ by Sidewalk Prophets has different lyrics about joy and happiness (indicating that they are two different things), saying that ‘Happiness is wonderful, but it doesn’t stick around’ but ‘There's always a reason to always choose joy’ and the reason why is that ‘There's something deeper that the world can't destroy.' (See endnote 2)

You don't have to be happy to have joy. Joy is acknowledging that even in the pain of today, God is still worth trusting. Chip Ingram says it this way in the Art of Survival (endnote 3): ‘You may not feel joyful in the thick of life’s painful challenges, but you can still choose joy.’ He builds on that to say that this joy is possible because it does not depend on your circumstances. Joy is an attitude you can choose daily. You can trust that God has specific gifts to bless you with in the present. He understands your hurt deeply and will help you in your grief if you ask Him. 

He also has things to do in and through you today and every day. He could use you to bring comfort to a relative at a Thanksgiving gathering, allow you a chance to connect with someone you haven’t seen in awhile, or simply give you the opportunity to enjoy a quality meal. Even if the only good thing that happens to you today is something tiny and ordinary, like getting a few hours of sleep before the day started or walking out a door, there still is good somewhere in every day because God made this day, each one before it, and each one after it with purpose. 

Let Him show you what good He has for you today by choosing to be present in it. In the parts that feel hard or even unbearable, know that God does and will continue to hold you through the challenges, brokenness, suffering, and pain if you do not turn away from Him - and is always ready to accept and forgive you again if you did - because on the Cross He officially took away evil’s power to ultimately destroy anyone who accepts His salvation. (Editor’s Note: Please see our Statement of Faith for more details about salvation.)

Gratitude in Grief?

Thanksgiving is all about being grateful (giving thanks). Just like it’s possible (and hard, but worth it) to have joy and be suffering, there is a lot of power to acknowledging what you can see of God’s goodness when goodness is hard to find in your circumstances. Grief can be a difficult time to think about God. If you are experiencing disappointment with God for allowing what is hurting you, that’s completely valid and something a lot of people wrestle with, including many biblical figures like Naomi (Ruth’s mother-in-law), David, Mary and Martha (Lazarus’s sisters, John 11), Jesus’s disciples when Jesus dies (especially in Luke 24:13-21), and many others. Acknowledging your disappointment to God is not a sin (If it were, none of the psalms of latent would be in the Bible, which are all about handling disappointment with God.). In fact, we can be honest with him because He knows our feelings anyway. 

It’s how you choose to respond to disappointment, sorrow, and suffering that makes a big difference. Finding reasons to be grateful even in times of change and loss does not erase your right to be sad and acknowledge that the grief you are going through is not the way things were meant to be. (There was no death before Genesis 3, when mankind first turned away from God.) 

In her book, The Power of Thank You, Joyce Meyer focuses on what it looks like to regularly thank God and people around you for both large and small ways they bless you ‘especially the tiny things many people take for granted’ (endnote 5). She points out that ‘Psalm 100:4 says we are to ‘be thankful and say so’ (AMPC). This is a simple yet powerful instruction. It means to have a heart that appreciates everything it is given and a mouth that expresses thanksgiving to God and to people through words.’ (endnote 6) 

One Thanksgiving day when I was in elementary school, my sister and I were bored while waiting to go to a family gathering. She got out her sketchbook and began to draw/write everything she was grateful for. I did it too and was surprised by how much there is. Food, water, sleep, a floor to walk on, the ability to breathe, fall leaves, BandAids, 24 hours in a day, paper to write on, a backpack to carry stuff in at school, shoes, a winter coat, not having a cold at a current moment, and other material blessings can feel a little insignificant if you have had something your whole life. It's only when there’s the danger of losing it that we realize how valuable something is. Something I’ve heard a lot is to imagine what your life would be like without something in order to realize its full value. 

Today, there are many things you can be thankful for and many people you can be thankful for. If there is anyone in your life who has done anything good for you or has made you smile at any point in time, this positive experience was a gift from them, but more fundamentally a gift from God. He had your lives intersect specifically for that moment.

You can also be thankful for the life intersections you got with your loved one. Each day you got with your loved one was a gift. It’s hard to be thankful for the time you spent with them when you want more. It’s hard to look around you and see where good could still be now. 

Thankfulness is a choice to believe and acknowledge that God still has good planted around you and within you wherever you are. In the book The Power of Thank You, Joyce Meyer, phrases this choice as the option to be ‘thankful for the rose while dealing with the thorns’ (endnote 7). In this case, the rose is that you got to spend time with them and you got to share in a loving, meaningful connection with them. The thorn is that with love comes loss. 

The little things still matter. All those moments you miss are ones you can treasure. You can cherish the gifts God gave you in the past while looking around to see the different ones that are still available for you right now. Gratitude isn’t the absence of pain. Being sad and yet still grateful for what you can is worth it because God planted each gift in your life with intentionality. Anything and any moment with anyone that brings you a smile, a moment of calm, or makes your life right now possible is worth thanking God for. 

Conclusion

One of my other favorite quotes from The Power of Thank You highlights Joyce Meyer’s perspective on future thankfulness. She reminds readers that ‘our stories are still being written … The ending is the best part and it will end well. You can begin thanking God now for all the good things that will show up in your future, because God’s plans have already been decreed for you in His Word’ (endnote 8). It may be hard to see hope in your future, but God has plenty of great things in store for your life here each day (Editors’ Note: You can read Seeing the Value of Life After a Death for further explanation on what God still has in store for your life on Earth.) and a place of eternal joy and complete restoration, Heaven, already prepared for your arrival in His perfect timing.

I hope some of these Thanksgiving tips will help you to see the day in light of God’s promises. This day may be hard. It can also be an opportunity for deeper connection with your family and a chance to discover gratitude. May God bless you with many, many reasons to thank Him on Thanksgiving and help you to realize that He is with you every second of awkwardness, suffering, sadness, and happiness. May He fill you with joy through it all.

Endnotes:

1. John 15:7 The first half, ‘if you remain in me and my words remain in you’ meaning that the prayers Jesus promises God will answer are the ones that people who continue to pursue obedience and alignment with God’s perspective and plan (by studying Scripture and seeking to live in full allegiance to His Word and Will) pray. This means people who pray for God’s Will to be done, trusting Him to do what is best, above their own request. Jesus sets the example for this in the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13) and in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:39). Your faith tradition might also have more teaching about this topic too.

2. Smile by Sidewalk Prophets

3. Ingram, Chip, The A.R.T. of Survival in an Age of Chaos (2022, Living on the Edge, Suwanne, Georgia), p. 19

4. Ingram, Chip, The A.R.T. of Survival in an Age of Chaos (2022, Living on the Edge, Suwanne, Georgia), Ch. 1: An Attitude to Embrace

5. Meyer, Joyce, The Power of Thank You (2022, FaithWords, Hachette Book Group, New York, NY), p. 13

6. Meyer, Joyce, The Power of Thank You (2022, FaithWords, Hachette Book Group, New York, NY), p. 10

7. Meyer, Joyce, The Power of Thank You (2022, FaithWords, Hachette Book Group, New York, NY), p. 31

Meyer, Joyce, The Power of Thank You (2022, FaithWords, Hachette Book Group, New York, NY), p. 42