1 Thessalonians 5:18
Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
Thanksgiving is a time in the year that forces people to reflect on what they have going well for them. We gather around a table that is full of family members and massive amounts of food for this American holiday. We have a roof over head and, unless you live in the south, the heat blasting warm air.
Why do people only realize how great their lives are around Thanksgiving? The whole holiday forces people to put their lives into perspective by stating what they are thankful for. Shouldn’t we always be thankful?
I am going to touch on a very tricky subject involving mental health. First off, I want to state that I have struggled with depression before, and I know lots of friends that struggle with other mental illnesses. There are instances where people that suffer from these mental illnesses need serious, medical attention due to the severity of the condition of the victim. However, I think some people need to learn the difference between a severe mental illness and “lack of perspective”.
I suffered from the “lack of perspective” when I was depressed.
A little bit of background about myself…
The beginning of middle school marked the start of my parents awful divorce. When I say awful, I mean that my mom and I moved into a meager, cramped up apartment above the garage of an elderly mechanic’s shop. My room was so small I could physically touch both sides of my room with my arms. I only had a bed and a small cupboard to put nicknacks in. The ceiling was sloped so I couldn’t fully stand in the majority of the small closet of a room. My mom and I struggled to pay for it at some points in time, living paycheck to paycheck.
During the divorce, my dad abandoned me. He stopped picking me up for his time of the custody. He stopped talking to me on the phone. He stopped everything. Granted, he found out that my mom had started to move on in her life seeing a new amazing guy that now has become a father figure in my life. He was upset. Upset with the way his life was turning out, upset that I was so emotionally unstable and irritable, upset that his ex wife had moved on. He was hurt and upset, but that didn’t justify his abandonment.
As a result of the expense of the divorce, I had a choice of continuing to live in the shoebox for a longer amount of time or go to a public school. I chose to change schools from my private, Christian school to a new public school that was probably 3 times more populated. It was terrible to leave all my friends that I had been with since kindergarten.
I was ripped away from the life I was used to all together.
As many would guess, I dealt with this change in an irrational way. I was confused as to why this was happening to me. The struggles I was going through didn’t seem far. My home life was a wreck, and yet I still went to school and managed to smile.
At some point during my freshman year of high school, my daddy reached out to me. We had a mutual, unspoken forgiveness of the other’s transgressions, and we began to make amends before he passed away from a sudden heart attack my sophomore year.
I moved into a house after moving from apartment to apartment. I finally had a “normal” sized room. My mom and I finally didn’t have to share a bathroom together.
Things were turning around in my life. Then, I realized I didn’t suffer from depression. I suffered from “lack of perspective”.
When going through all of this in my life, I had forgotten to count my blessings. Even though my parent’s divorce was a nightmare, I wouldn’t have met my mom’s fiance who became a wonderful father figure in my life in the wake of my father’s passing. If it weren’t for that kind-hearted, elderly man, my mother and I wouldn’t have had a place to live. Although my room was small, at least I had a space to call my own. Even though at the time changing schools was horrifying, I ended up making new friends that I would have never met if I had attended my private school for high school. Although losing my father was one of the hardest things that has happened, at least I grew up with a father that always caught me at the end of the slide. My dad’s death lead me to become close with my half brothers and their families. If it wasn’t for his passing, I would still be a lonely, only child.
Sure, I probably did suffer from some legitimate, small case of depression, but what helped me overcome and conquer my mental state was perspective. We, as the people that have things in our life, need to realize what we have. Not everyone has something in their lives. Some people literally have nothing. People suffer daily from starvation, dehydration, exposure to the elements, and other forms of extreme poverty, and yet we complain about petty things such as being hungry when there is a fast food restaurant on every corner.
Yes, I believe there are legitimate, severe cases of mental illness that need medical attention. However, I think that some people confuse this with “lack of perspective” otherwise known as ungratefulness. I challenge you to be thankful for all the things you have in your life not on Thanksgiving, but all year round.
