Why I Don’t Tell Facebook What I’m Thankful For

Thanks to the hordes of beautifully designed gratitude quotes on Pinterest which followed Oprah’s introduction to “Gratitude Journals,” saying thank you has become trendy, especially in autumn when Thanksgiving is on our minds. My Facebook feed is chock full of daily posts from friends who, for thirty days, post one thing every day for which they are thankful. I like the concept and would do it myself if I thought I could remember to do anything for thirty days in a row. I’m all about focusing on the goodness that is ours, the blessings we cannot believe are our own. But there’s something about the social media gratitude post that feels a little flat to me.

I really don’t doubt that people are grateful and want to tell others, to pass along the practice of expressing gratitude. But I wonder why we sometimes seem to scrub up (and maybe even enhance) our public gratitude. What is truly behind our desire to tell everyone how thankful we are for our honor roll-earning, tri-lingual, starting quarterback son who voluntarily scrubs public toilets?  I wonder if perhaps we are motivated by a need for others to view our lives as altogether wonderful (perfect, even) by expressing thanks for the pretty parts, rather than expressing gratitude for—and thereby allowing others to see—the broken pieces that make up our real, flawed lives.

Know what I’m grateful for? The gifts of imperfection and grace. Seriously. They have saved my life. For years I worked awfully hard at trying to get all of you to like me. So much so that I was willing to make a terrible trade: my authenticity was bartered away in exchange for your approval. It was a terrible deal. If indeed you did approve, you were approving of an airbrushed version of me. The piles of messy papers in my office, the recipes I botched, the appointments I forgot, the sharp words I uttered, and the fear that I was messing it all up were absent. But now, if you ask what I am thankful for, I will tell you I’m thankful for all of it, and I will let you see a more realistic version of me (sure, still through an Instagram filter or at least a downward angle and good lighting).

I will let you see the messy parts of my life because I am as thankful for them as I am for the pretty parts.

[Tweet “I am thankful for the flaws in me that remind me of my daily need for a savior.”]

After all, I am not here to deliver perfection. I’m incapable of delivering perfection, and anyway, Jesus took care of that. I am here, however, to deliver a whole person to my family, to my community, to the world. And it turns out a whole person has fractures and cracks and even a broken piece here or there. But I have come to embrace those places. They allow my need for a gracious God to shine through the brightest.

So today I thank God for the times I reach the end of myself. The times I mess up with those I love, the times I fail to come through for the ones who need me most. These moments allow me the opportunity to model the art of apologizing to the people God has entrusted to me.

I thank God for kids who test my patience (and sometimes make me want to run away from home). It is these moments that allow me to ask God for (and to then receive) wisdom. I get to show my children what a life of abundant love and grace looks like and encourage them to shower love and grace upon themselves and others. I am privileged to lead them in pouring it all out, in not withholding a single drop of the best of themselves.

I say thank you for a husband who sometimes says things he regrets since it offers me the opportunity to return the grace and love he has extended to me.  It’s a wonderful practice that makes me more accepting of my own shortcomings. Neither of us has this “love never fails” thing completely figured out, but we can ensure the love between us never ends. Our love is almost always most beautiful when one of us is gracious with the other’s misstep.

So in this season of thanksgiving, I encourage you to give thanks for the cracked and chipped pieces of your life and yourself. These are the very places where God’s light filters through most clearly, most authentically. Real trumps perfect every single day, and that is something for which we can all be immeasurably grateful.

Melinda Mattson will follow any sign that leads to the promise of vintage décor and repurposed treasures. As a wife and mom to two dear daughters, her home is filled with equal measures of sugar and spice. She loves kindness and Jesus and is glad they’re meant to come as a package deal. She aims to embrace both with equal fervor. Melinda blogs at www.melindamattson.com

Photograph by, Stefan Schweihofer.