What do toilet paper, long bike rides down sun-dappled autumn roads, Diet Coke, and Justin Bieber have in common?
Answer: #Thanksgiving, internet style. I’ve seen expressions of appreciation for each show up on Facebook and Twitter this month. I’ve certainly populated the social media universe myself with mentions of the gifts I’m grateful for, among them family, friends, health, food, and employment. Other expressions of gratitude I’ve seen have hit similar themes.
I’ve seen many other gratitude lists that are simply inventories of coveted, then acquired consumer products: big-screen TVs, cute new sweaters, Pumpkin Spice Lattes. Thanks, then, is reduced to consuming or buying stuff. Ironically, the kinds of things that are on these shopping lists are hardwired into a deeper frustration that things aren’t the way they are supposed to be in our society. Both the Tea Party and Occupy movements are grassroots responses to our floundering economy. We are in a down market for true gratitude if giving thanks is primarily linked to our purchasing power.
Gratitude is big business in our culture. Oprah regularly urged her viewers to keep a gratitude journal. With nearly 1,000 listings for “gratitude journals” on Amazon.com, it would appear that there are bucks to be made from the counting of blessings. Researchers tell us that giving thanks benefits the one doing the thanking. I can celebrate the positive effects that gratitude has in our lives. And I can’t deny that this month’s expressions of thanksgiving add a splash of warm ‘n fuzzy sentiment to the atmosphere around the internet and in our culture, even those I don’t fully understand. (See Bieber, above.)
But thanksgiving, by definition, is supposed to be about someone other than the one doing the thanking. Author Ann Voskamp’s 1000 Gifts: Dare To Live Fully Right Where You Are hit bestseller lists this year with a poetic, biblically anchored message about gratitude’s power to transform both the way we live our lives and the way we relate to God. (See Her.meneutics’ tworeviews of the book.) Voskamp’s book has inspired tens of thousands of readers to offer their thanks to the Giver for the ordinary moments of their days, a welcome redirect from Oprah’s “Say thank you to the universe!” message.
I may sound a bit Scrooge-like, but I confess that I am growing increasingly uncomfortable with Twinkie-sweet emotion that strips away purpose from gratitude. In my estimation, gratitude has morphed into a feel-good trending topic instead of what it really is according to Scripture: a costly expression of worship.
The Bible presents a remarkably unsentimental portrait of gratitude. The emotions we may experience are wonderful byproducts of our obedience and worship. The pages of Scripture remove us from the visceral smells and sounds of animal sacrifice, but those offerings were a bleating, bleeding centerpiece of expressed thanksgiving in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, Paul connects the sacrificial giving by the congregation at Corinth to the expressions of gratitude by the recipients of these financial gifts. Thanksgiving is a costly act.
That cost is perhaps seen most poignantly in Job’s stripped-bare words after he had lost everything, when he didn’t have anything to offer except himself: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised” (Job 1:20).
True biblical gratitude has God as its object. He cherishes the offerings of thanks that flow from our hearts toward him, because these words flow out of relationship. The thanks we offer to him is always a response to the blessing of what he gives to us without reservation – himself.
Rev. Dr. Craig Barnes‘s words have helped me connect with the real meaning of thanksgiving this year:
Being thankful is not telling God you appreciate the fact that your life is not in shambles. If that is the basis of your gratitude, you are on slippery ground. Every day of your life you face the possibility that a blessing in your life may be taken away. But blessings are only signs of God’s love. The real blessing, of course, is the love itself. Whenever we get too attached to the sign, we lose our grasp on the God who gave it to us. Churches are filled with widows who can explain this to you. We are not ultimately grateful that we are still holding our blessings. We are grateful that we are held by God even when the blessings are slipping through our fingers.
This Thanksgiving, I will thank God for his abundant blessings. I will offer myself to him, extending my empty hands in prayer while acknowledging the losses I’ve experienced this year. And then I will sit in silence for a while, grateful to be held by God.
Remember Bruce Marchiano and his winsome performance as Jesus in 1993’s The Visual Bible: The Gospel According to Matthew?
For years, Marchiano has wanted to do something similar with the Gospel of John – a word-for-word adaptation of the book to the big screen. Finding deep-pocketed investors, however, has been another story. So Marchiano has recently changed his strategy: He’s now calling the hoped-for film Jesus . . . No Greater Love, still a verbatim adaptation. But how’s he going to pay for it? That’s where you come into the picture . . .
Marchiano is calling on regular folks to be “co-producers” of the film – specifically, he’s asking 4.5 million Christians to give $10 apiece (tax deductible) to turn his vision into reality.
“In all humility,” says Marchiano, “I am asking Christians around the world to support us, to unite across cultures and denominations in the name of Jesus. It will be a long process, but if we all pull together, we can get this movie made—that the nations might be saved.”
Learn more about Marchiano’s plan, and the film, at the official site, and check out the excitement in this promo video:
This month, the pharmacy services company Medco reported that in 2010, one in five American adults took a mental health prescription drug, a 22 percent increase since 2001. Antidepressant use by men is on the rise, but women still take more antidepressants than men, with 21 percent of women taking at least one antidepressant in 2010. I was one of those women.
When my twins were born four years ago, it didn’t take long for us to realize I was struggling. Post-partum depression hits many women during the first year after childbirth. With the natural hormone swings after giving birth, it can be difficult to tell if a new mother is trying to adjust to new demands and sleep schedules or is clinically depressed. When my mother found me crying while running a bath for our oldest boy, it became obvious that I was struggling with the latter.
All it took was a quick visit to the ob-gyn. I remember being grateful I didn’t have to work out psychiatrist appointments or introduce a new doctor to the problems. Instead, the ob-gyn wrote the prescription as we talked. It was so easy.
Getting off the drugs proved to be a bit more difficult. Each year I went to my check-up, determined that I would get a plan to step down. Each year, the doctor encouraged me to stay on the meds. Each year he said, “It’s a really benign drug, there are no side effects. It helps take the edge off.”
He wasn’t quite accurate. Zoloft’s website lists plenty of physical and psychological side effects. Besides the warnings, Zoloft was also made to treat a range of personality and depressive disorders, but post-partum depression is not on the list.
Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) are the most common antidepressants prescribed today. They work on the theory that depression is caused by the absorption of serotonin in the cells of the brain, leaving the synapses free of the needed chemical. The SSRI keeps serotonin from being reabsorbed, and the increase of that chemical in the body causes the mood to lift.
The use of antidepressants is not without controversy in the Christian community and beyond. Our knowledge of the brain has grown significantly in the past 20 years, but we still have a lot to learn. The theory on which these medicines are based could be completely misguided, and because the earliest SSRI, Paxil, is only 23 years old, we can’t be completely sure of its long-term effects. Add to this the fact that primary care physicians—not licensed psychiatrists—are the main prescribers of these medicines, and the case against them gets stronger.
The past three years of my life, during which I have taken an SSRI, are a little fuzzy. Perhaps they would have been anyway, with three boys born 19 months apart. But I often wonder if the little blue pill I swallowed every night contributed to the fuzziness. The irritations, frustrations, and struggles may have been blunted, but so were the joys and the triumphs.
In a 2010 Revive Our Hearts radio interview, Reformed writer Elyse Fitzpatrick, author of Will Medicine Stop the Pain? (Moody), said:
It’s so important for us just to remember that yes, perhaps the anti-depressants are making it so that we’re not feeling those raw, painful emotions. But those emotions are given to us by God to drive us to himself and then to force us to ask questions about our faith and about the way that we’re living and thinking and responding to things.
Should Christians avoid taking antidepressants, instead “letting go and letting God” lead us through the ups and downs of life? I’m not sure. After all, depression is a real mental health issue, one more piece of evidence that our minds and bodies do not function as they were intended to in our fallen world. I’m glad that the stigma of depression is lifting; gone are the days of whispered: “She’s on medication.” What I do know is that we should resist thinking of meds and the one and only answer to depression and consider a more well-rounded response to mental health, which might include the following steps.
1. Find a true professional: a psychiatrist, psychologist, or counselor. Christian counselors especially are trained to help patients talk through problems with a view of the gospel, and that may be all we need sometimes. If there is a true need for antidepressants, a psychiatrist is easier to trust than the person who delivered your baby hours before.
2. Stay healthy. Exercise, eat whole foods full of nutrition, and get as much rest as possible.
3. Re-evaluate. Are you depressed only because life isn’t what you expected? In my case, I had an image of happy stay-at-home moms constantly thrilled with their little darlings and the messes they make. Much of my anxiety centered on not fulfilling this picture. Instead, look to Jesus, casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you (1 Pet. 5:7). He can give us a much more accurate picture of what to expect in this life.
Certainly antidepressants can take the edge off the pain of living in this broken world. But is it possible that we need those edges, which so often lead us to Christ?
Monica Selby lives with her husband, three boys, and one cat in Memphis, Tennessee. A member of the Redbud Writers Guild, she blogs at In the Whisper.
> The new documentary Inside the Revolution, based on Joel Rosenberg’s book of the same title, has been selling well at Barnes & Noble, recently finishing at No. 2 in overall sales. The doc, like the book, concerns volatile relations in the Middle East; the subtitle says it all: “How the followers of Jihad, Jefferson and Jesus are battling to dominate the Middle East and transform the world.” Both products are distributed by Tyndale House Publishers; the DVD is available for purchase here.
> To Save a Life, a drama about teen suicide and what students can do to help hurting peers, will hit theaters on January 22 and will be distributed by Samuel Goldwyn (Fireproof, Amazing Grace). Outreach Films is also partnering with the film, which has a subtle evangelistic message.
> Luke Barnett, a Christian actor, is producing a new documentary called Spare Some Change about homeless youth in America. He is also part of the Spare Some Change movement, which hopes to get as many homeless kids off the streets as possible. Learn more about the movement here, and check out their promo video below:
