Grief and Gratitude: 5 Ways Gratitude Helps Us Move Through Grief

For years I’ve seen a quote circulate on social media that says, “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”1 I want to change it every time because these words, well-intentioned as they may be, rush us past grief with a passing nod so we can land squarely in gratitude.

God tells us to give thanks in all things, but he never says it’s a choice between sorrow and thanksgiving. It’s not grief or gratitude. It’s grief and gratitude.

We can both grieve what’s gone and savor what’s good.

We can be both deeply grateful and deeply grieving. Gratitude doesn’t happen once we’ve moved through grief. They can go hand in hand. They are not opposites nor are they sequential. They are co-workers, helping us process pain and take steps forward. It’s not from grief to gratitude but grief alongside gratitude.

Grief and Gratitude in the Bible

Many psalms reflect both lament and thanksgiving. Psalm 13 starts with sorrow: “How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?…How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?”

But the psalmist also gives thanks: “I will sing the Lord’s praise, for he has been good to me.” (Psalm 13, NIV) Instead of forcing a choice of between grief and gratitude, the psalms of lament show we can hold both.

What about some of those who suffered in the Bible who suffered like Job? Job endured catastrophic suffering including the death of his ten children, the complete loss of his farming business, and the onset of a painful, disfiguring disease. After 41 chapters describing Job’s lament, his friends’ rebukes, and God’s correction, God restores Job.

God blessed Job’s latter days more than his beginning, giving him twice what he lost and 10 more children. And he lived happily ever after, right? Hmmm, not so fast. In the wake of my own loss, I now know Job must have been grateful for God’s goodness and blessing, but for the rest of his long life, he must also have grieved for his 10 oldest children who died.

          We can both grieve what’s gone and savor what’s good.

Jesus too models holding both grief and gratitude. On the evening of the Last Supper, knowing he was about to be betrayed, arrested, mocked, beaten, and crucified, Jesus gave thanks.

“This was not an obligatory blessing offered up before the meal. The whole meal pictured the enormous sacrifice Jesus was about to make…He gave himself to God and to the world, not with coercion, but with abandon…and with gratitude, grateful for the privilege of obeying his Father and of fulfilling the mission He had been sent to earth to complete.” (Choosing Joy, 73)

Jesus gave thanks even as he knew the agony ahead, so great it would make him sweat drops of blood. If Jesus could hold both grief and gratitude, then so can we.

5 Insights About Grief And Gratitude

1. Grief and gratitude can co-exist.

On my worst day, as I gathered with my children to tell my college son over the phone the shocking news that his father had suddenly died, the Spirit helped me share these words: “Some kids never get a day with a father like you had. You had that father.” We were experiencing both excruciating pain and extraordinary thankfulness at the same time.

2. Gratitude doesn’t negate grief.

Being thankful doesn’t alleviate the pain. Sincere gratitude never insists on minimizing pain or slapping a band-aid over it. Gratitude acknowledges the magnitude of loss. That our life held someone or something really, really good and really, really meaningful. Gratitude helps us see we’d never experience grief if we hadn’t first experienced the good gift.

3. Grief can reshape our gratitude.

Loss teaches us about real gratitude. It’s easy to be grateful when things in life are going well. When the bank account is full and the children are behaving. The purest gratitude comes when life feels bad and yet we thank God for his goodness.

It’s while Paul was in prison that he wrote he’d “learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” (Phil 4:11-13, NIV)

4. Gratitude can reshape grief.

So much of the grief journey is out of our control. We may not have been able to control what caused our suffering, we can control our response.

One proactive practice we can take in grief is cultivating gratitude. Intentionally looking for God’s good hand with a daily gratitude list helps us see God is at work all around us even when circumstances are hard.

Gratitude ushers in peace as we give God our worries and he gives us his supernatural peace. Gratitude deepens our faith as we connect the dots of God’s goodness for us and leads to joy. Cultivating thankfulness also helps become content with what we have and defies the enemy’s lies. Choosing gratitude in grief absolutely shapes the way we grieve.

5. Gratitude in grief helps us see God’s goodness doesn’t stop and start.

God’s goodness is always at work. I saw God’s hand personally and precisely in multiple ways before Dan’s death. Here’s what I wrote in my book Life Can Be Good Again:

God did not answer my prayer to preserve Dan’s life, but God’s goodness was all around me. It was his goodness to prompt me earlier that week to go with Dan on his business trip to the Florida Keys for four rare, beautiful days alone. It was God’s goodness that Dan died at home, not on our trip, not at work, not while driving with our kids in the car. It was God’s goodness a friend happened to be at her mountain home near the camp where my son Ben was a counselor, and she drove over to be with him when I told him his dad had died…

It was God’s goodness when my door opened again and again that day as family, friends, and neighbors came to be with us. It was God’s goodness as I listened to my teens and their friends upstairs working through this tragedy with guitars and praise songs…Those are just a few good things we witnessed.

If grief feels like it’s depleted your ability to give thanks, I pray you’ll see how much God is still doing. And if the unction to be thankful feels like stuffing your grief, I pray you’ll see both are allowed.

We can both grieve what’s gone and savor what’s good.

Gratitude in grief helps us hold on to hope that though life doesn’t feel good, God is.

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