First of all, I love November.Â
I call it No Way November, in honor of the John Mayer song St. Patrick’s Day.
But I also kind of hate November. Because for the whole freaking month my Facebook newsfeed is full of people posting about all the cool stuff in their lives.
I’m not an angry, bitter human being about other people’s lives. When Mary-Keith announced her pregnancy and kind of felt bad when people struggling with infertility commented about it, I asked why. “You’re not having their baby,” I said. I asked her if she ever felt bad for talking about Philip to me, because I’m not married but would kind of like to be. Let’s just get over this whole fear of offending or making other people feel bad.
A few weeks ago, I decided to start attending a Bible Study at my church. I’d already been brave and started hanging around the women’s ministry and felt like being crazy stupid out there. The guy that was leading it was nice enough. An older, single gentleman. and at one point, he said “I guess that’s why it’s so lucky so many of us in this room are single… we have more time to devote to studying God’s word.”
and this sweet lady said “Speak for yourself. I miss my husband.” He died earlier this year, I found out.
As much as it sucks, often times our greatest gifts and blessings and things we want to be publicly grateful for are the sources of some of our friends deepest pains.
Like… cool that God has #blessed you with a great, loving, wonderful, handsome, patient husband. I’m really super glad for you. But did you know that as far as my adult relationships go, God has literally been in the business of slamming doors in my face? So if God gifts you with a husband, what does my bruised nose mean? You go Glen Coco for you aaaand none for you Gretchen Wieners for me?
Or what about – and you can’t tell but I’m pulling out my soapbox – what about the women who are desperately struggling with the pain of infertility? I don’t think it’s fair for that pain to taint the joy of a pregnancy announcement but it’s a different story when their Facebooks are full of pictures of people talking about how God has #blessed them with the gift of their kids they love so much.
Like I said, I’m not about being a whiny, bitter single, most likely never going to bear children of her own person. I trust God, and I’ll continue to seek him in the dry, confusing seasons as well as the lavish, peaceful ones. God is still God.
But the same God who has #blessed you with your husband, home, family, job, purpose, calling, car, siblings, dog, parents, cousins, best friends, brand new toy of some sort… has been withholding those same things from the people you love. It’s not your job to explain that, dismiss that, or attempt to fix that. It’s also not your job to feel bad about it.
It is, however, your job to be confused with us. To love us. To intercede for us. To write our names somewhere that you can see it and remember to pray for us. My friend Donna is the person I do that with. I wrote her name on my rearview mirror so that I can remember to pray for her EVERY SINGLE DAY. I cry for her and ask God WHY DON’T DONNA AND AARON HAVE A BABY YET?
I think about Donna all. the. freaking. time. I worry for her heart this November, as people post about how grateful they are for God’s gift of children, and I know she worries for my heart when our friends get engaged or count down the weeks since they got married.
Donna reminds me that the longing for things never really goes away.
Donna has a wonderful husband, something I wish I had.
but Donna doesn’t have a baby.
Some of my friends have babies, but no husbands.
Others have husbands but no houses.
Others had houses and babies but no husbands.
Others had husbands and houses but no babies.
Others had husbands, houses and babies, but no joy in their jobs.
I’m not going to get all preachy about these needs and these longings and their deepest desires of our beings.
but while I’m here on my soapbox, I’m going to take the time to get a little preachy about your #blessed and gratitude and thanksgiving posts:
shut the f. up.Â
Not completely, mind you.Â
I absolutely, 100000% want you to continue to be grateful for what God has done for you.
Do the rest of us a favor and TELL GOD. JUST TELL HIM. HE WILL HEAR YOU, EVEN IF YOU DON’T PUT IT ON YOUR FACEBOOK.
Good bloggers end their posts with a call to action.
So here’s my call to action:
SHUT UP.
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
My biggest gripe is people who use November to be “thankful” for each little thing, but spend the rest of the year complaining and taking everything for granted.
This is too true. I try not to post in-your-face I’M SO THANKFUL FOR __________ because it’s more of an inner reflection for me. Like, you don’t have to publicly announce it for it to mean something. (I mean, I get it for pregnancy/birth announcements that are literally announcements.) Also I agree with Breenah too! I hope your friend Donna and her husband are able to get pregnant and some day you find a guy that doesn’t end up being a door slammed in the face! And I hope everyone else who’s hoping for something like that can get it too. <3
i think people (myself included) use the word “blessed” wrong. we only say we are blessed when it’s something positive…but God blesses us through trials and tribulations too. but when we ONLY say we are blessed when speaking of positive things…. it kinda takes away from the true meaning of blessing.
Yes. Some people can be so obnoxious about their thankfulness. What usually lessens the blow for me is that many of those people don’t even understand how others could be offended.
There you go, making me get all teary eyed at my desk at work… Love you Stephanie, and I am so blessed that God has given me a friend like you. Praise him for all his abundant blessings to us all!!
Amen. Just, amen.
I don’t know how I feel about this. I understand that some people aren’t blessed with a husband, but at the same time, I’m not going to quit gushing about mine because it isn’t about the people who have none; it’s about Justin. Publicly declaring my love for him when we’ve had a particularly rough day can be exactly the kind of boost he needs. Or, when big events happen that you have literally prayed for all your life, why wouldn’t you want to talk about it? I’m grateful and a lot of the time, other people in my life had some big part in making __________ happen, so thanking them is my prerogative, and with social media, it’s very easy to do that. I don’t want to scare anyone off, but if anyone has issues with my gratefulness, maybe they should unsubscribe. I don’t rub people’s face in my joy and I don’t expect everyone to be in the same place. I agree with praising Him and telling Him, yes. But like I said above, sometimes, when you’re really happy, talking about it is what social media is FOR.
<3
I had similar thoughts as you Allie. I began posting a gratitude journal in January 2013 because life wasn’t going well. Over the next two years, I was hit in 4 car accidents where I was very injured in all of them, my sister died from complications of suicide because my parents were visiting me, I really had a hard time making friends in our new state,…and the list keeps going. Honestly, that gratitude list is definitely what kept me going sometimes and I found that sometimes they made other people happier when I shared them too. It didn’t change the hard things that were happening, it didn’t mean I could be insensitive of what others were experiencing, but it did help me see things were going well in my life that maybe I hadn’t recognized and social media became a vehicle for me to be able to share that.