017 - Are You Thankful for the Nos?

The season of Thanksgiving is one in which I always find myself reflecting on the year behind me.

I’ve been thinking about how this year has both felt like a single day and an entire decade, how late the sun used to be out. I’ve been considering the hopes and goals I had for the year and trying to plan how I might actually try to work on those hopes and goals before the year comes to an end so that I can say I accomplished them.

Of course, more than anything during the Thanksgiving season, I’ve been thinking about the things and people for which I’m grateful – my husband, home, family, friends, and church. You know, the usual things. I spend so much of this season thinking about all the things that God has given me, and thanking Him for those things.

But this year I’m also thinking about all the things that God hasn’t given me, and – here’s the kicker – thanking Him for those nos, as well. There’s no denying that this year has been a hard one, harder than other recent years. And I’ve received plenty of nos from God throughout 2020. Instead of a year of open doors and safe passage, this year I just spent a lot of time in a hallway full of doors that God had kept closed.

There were so many times this year when it seemed as though a door was finally beginning to open, but when I got closer to it and started to move through it, it slammed closed in my face. And in the moment – a moment of confusion and anger and a nose that’s just been smacked by a door – it’s really, really hard to see what God is up to, let alone thank Him for it. But one of the things I love about God is that He understands. He knows that we are not Him, and so He knows that we aren’t always (or even usually) able to see what He is doing. And so when we aren’t immediately grateful for the nos He’s given us, He understands and He gives us grace and love despite that.

As I look back over a really hard year, I’m so grateful for most of the nos I received from God. Not all of them; I still can’t see the full big picture yet. But from what I can tell, God provided for me just as much when He told me no as when He told me yes this year. And even as I consider the nos I’m not so grateful for yet, I know that even when my circumstances were not good, God still was.

As you consider your year – the highs and lows, the good times and bad, the yeses from God and the nos – my prayer for you is that you will find gratitude for it all, if only because you can be certain that a good God was with you in each and every moment and for each and every step.

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Published in the 017 - November 24 issue of TuesdayTribe

Written by Hannah Hladek

Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash